Characterization of pseudo-collarable manifolds with boundary (Q2225035)

The paper under review represents a continuation of the recent work by \textit{C. Guilbault} and the author [J. Topol. Anal. 12, No. 4, 1073--1101 (2020; Zbl 1460.57029)] concerning the problem of finding an appropriate boundary for non-compact manifolds, with the aim of extending Siebenmann's celebrated Ph.D. Thesis results. Siebenmann's old theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for a smooth, open, high-dimensional manifold to be \textit{compactifiable} (i.e. the interior of a smooth compact manifold with boundary). Its natural generalization deals with manifolds with non-compact boundaries: in such a case one looks for a \textit{completion} of the manifold (i.e. a compact manifold \(\hat M\) and a compactum \(C\) inside \(\partial \hat M\) such that \(\hat M - C\) is homeomorphic to the original manifold \(M\)). On the other hand, the original problem of Siebenmann can be viewed also as the following question: ``When does an open \(n\)-manifold contain an `open collar' neighborhood of infinity?'' (A manifold \(M\) is an \textit{open collar} if \(M \simeq \partial M \times [0, 1)\)). Hence, one can generalize the notion of an open collar to that of a ``pseudo-collar'', and then seek conditions that imply that a given open \(n\)-manifold contains a pseudo-collar neighborhood of infinity. Here a manifold \(V\) with compact boundary is a \textit{homotopy collar} if \(\partial V \to V\) is a homotopy equivalence. If, in addition, \(V\) contains arbitrarily small homotopy collar neighborhoods of infinity, \(V\) is called a \textit {pseudo-collar}. In [loc. cit.], Guilbault and the author focused just on the first approach, manifolds with non compact boundaries, and characterized these, by proving that a high-dimensional manifold admits a completion if and only if it satisfies four properties concerning the topology of its neighborhoods of infinity. However, it turns out that one of these four properties (which concerns the algebraic behaviour of the fundamental group at infinity) is far too strong in order to catch some exotic examples of universal covering spaces which arise somehow naturally in the context of the topology at infinity of discrete groups (e.g. \textit{M. W. Davis}' famous examples of universal covers that are not simply connected at infinity [Ann. Math. (2) 117, 293--324 (1983; Zbl 0531.57041)]). Davis' open manifolds are actually examples of pseudo-collarable manifolds that are not collarable. In the 2000's Giulbault carried out a project for a generalization of Siebenmann's result for pseudo-collarable manifolds with compact boundary, which he completed in 2006 (together with F. Tinsley) providing a complete characterization of these manifolds in [\textit{C. R. Guilbault} and \textit{F. C. Tinsley}, Geom. Topol. 10, 541-556 (2006; Zbl 1130.57032)]. The present paper presents a generalization of this result in the context of manifolds with noncompact boundaries, and it furnishes a complete characterization of high-dimensional (\(n\geq 6\)) pseudo collarable open manifolds (possibly with non-compact boundaries).