Degree-one, monotone self-maps of the Pontryagin surface are near-homeomorphisms (Q2305444)

The paper centers around the basic question of which surjective self-maps of a metric topological space \(X\) are \textit{near-homeomorphisms}, i.e. can be approximated by homeomorphisms. If \(X\) is a manifold or a Hilbert cube manifold, these are exactly the cell-like maps and, if \(X\) is a \(n\)-dimensional Menger manifold, the ``\(UV^{n-1}\) self-maps''. In the present paper, the authors consider Pontryagin surfaces, as introduced in a paper by \textit{W. J. R. Mitchell} et al. [Topology 31, No. 3, 605--623 (1992; Zbl 0769.55003)], building on a related construction of Pontryagin in which it is shown that a loop in a metric space satisfying certain local conditions is null homologous if and only if it bounds a singular Pontryagin disk. The present authors work with an equivalent definition of Pontryagin surface using decompositions into points and figure-eights; their main result, the ``monotone approximation theorem'', states that a self-map of a closed Pontryagin surface can be approximated by homeomorphisms if and only if it is monotone (i.e., every point preimage is connected) and has degree \(\pm 1\). It is known that connected Pontryagin surfaces are homogeneous and that every map of a Pontryagin disk or surface into a generalized manifold of dimension at least 5 can be approximated by embeddings. The authors note also that every monotone map between closed orientable surfaces has degree \(\pm 1\) but that the degree \(\pm 1\) hypothesis in their monotone approximation theorem is not redundant (as examples announced by the authors show).