On the homotopy equivalence of the spaces of proper and local maps (Q2248508)

For any topological spaces \(X\) and \(Y\), let \(\mathrm{Map}(X,Y)\) denote the space of all continuous maps from \(X\) to \(Y\) with the compact open topology and let \({\mathcal M}(X,Y)\) be the space of all continuous maps \(f:D_f\to Y\) such that \(D_f\) is an open subset of \(X\). For a family \({\mathcal R}\) of subsets of \(Y\), we denote by \(\mathrm{Loc}(X,Y;{\mathcal R})\) the space of all maps \(f\in {\mathcal M}(X,Y)\) such that \(f^{-1}(R)\) is a compact subset of \(D_f\) for any \(R\in {\mathcal R}\). When \({\mathcal R}\) is a family of all compact subsets of \(Y\), we define the spaces of partial and proper maps \(\mathrm{Par}(X,Y)\) and \(\mathrm{Prop}(X,Y)\) by \(\mathrm{Par}(X,Y)=\mathrm{Loc}(X,Y;\emptyset )\) and \(\mathrm{Prop}(X,Y)=(X,Y;{\mathcal R})\), respectively. For \(n\geq 1\) and \(k\geq 0\), let \({\mathcal F}(n,k)\) and \({\mathcal P}(n,k)\) denote the spaces given by \({\mathcal F}(n,k)=\mathrm{Loc}(\mathbb{R}^{n+k},\mathbb{R}^k;\{\{{\mathbf 0}\}\})\) and \({\mathcal P}(n,k)=\mathrm{Prop}(\mathbb{R}^{n+k},\mathbb{R}^n)\), and let \({\mathcal F}_0(n,k)\) (resp. \({\mathcal P}_0(n,k)\)) be the component of \({\mathcal F}(n,k)\) (resp. \({\mathcal P}(n,k)\)) which contains the empty map. Recently the authors showed that the inclusion map \({\mathcal P}(n,k)\to {\mathcal F}(n,k)\) is a weak homotopy equivalence for \(n\geq 1\) and \(k\geq 0\), and this paper is essentially intended as an essential complement of this result. In fact, in this paper the authors prove that two spaces \({\mathcal P}_0(n,k)\) and \({\mathcal F}_0(n,k)\) are not homotopy equivalent for \(n>1\) and \(k\geq 0\). Moreover, they also consider the case \(n=1\) and they prove that \({\mathcal P}_0(1,k)\) is contractible and that \({\mathcal F}_0(1,k)\) is weakly contractible.