A note on covers defining relative and sectional categories (Q2324520)

The renewed interest in the sectorial category (also called the Schwarz genus) of any fibration \(p\), \(\mathrm{secat}(p)\), occured thanks to the introduction by M. Farber of the topological complexity of spaces, \(TC(X)\). Indeed, in addition to being a homotopy invariant defined in the spirit of the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category, \(\mathrm{cat}(X)\), it is a useful bridge between topology and robotics, cf. [\textit{M. Farber}, Discrete Comput. Geom. 29, No. 2, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)]. The author's purpose in this paper is twofold. On the one hand, he gives a characterization by means of open covers of \(\mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\), the relative version of \(\mathrm{cat}(X)\), defined for any cofibration \(i_X:A\hookrightarrow X\). To this end, he first introduces another numerical homotopy invariant, denoted \(\mathrm{relcat}^{op}(i_X)\) (Definition 1.3). Thus, by using the Doereane-El Houari's characterization for \(\mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\) established in [\textit{J. P. Doeraene} et al., Topology Appl. 160, No. 5, 766--783 (2013; Zbl 1264.55004)] (cf. Theorem 1.1) and the nice explicit description of the \(n\)-th sectonial fat-wedge \(T^n(i_X)\) (Proposition 1.2), he proves the first main result of the paper, namely: Theorem 1.6. If \(A\hookrightarrow X\) is cofibration where \(X\) is a normal space, then \(\mathrm{relcat}^{op}(i_X) = \mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\). On the other hand, following the same spirit as in \textit{T. Sirinivasan}'s work [Topology Appl. 160, No. 13, 1742--1749 (2013; Zbl 1281.55006); ibid. 167, 87--95 (2014; Zbl 1364.55005)], the author introduces generalized versions \(\mathrm{relcat}_g(i_X)\) and \(\mathrm{secat}(p)_g\) of \(\mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\) and \(\mathrm{secat}(p)\), respectively, and establishes their homotopy invariance (in the sense of Proposition 2.11 and Proposition 2.2 respectively). The main results related to these invariants are: Theorem 2.7. Let \(p:E\rightarrow B\) be a fibration where \(E\) and \(B\) are ANR spaces. Then \(\mathrm{relcat}_g(i_X) = \mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\). Theorem 2.16. Let \(A\hookrightarrow X\) be a cofibration between ANR spaces. Then \(\mathrm{relcat}_g(i_X) = \mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\). Furthermore, among numerous consequences of the results of the paper we cite the following ones: (i) If \(X\) is a normal and path-connected space, then \[ \mathrm{nil}H^\ast(X,A)\leq \mathrm{relcat}(i_X)\leq\mathrm{cat}^{FH}(A,X) \] where \(\mathrm{cat}^{FH}(A,X)\) denotes Fadell-Husseini's relative category. (ii) Let \(X\) be a space having the homotopy type of a CW-complex (or equivalently of a connected ANR space), then \(TC(X)=TC_g(X)\), that is the topological complexity of any path-connected space \(X\) can be determined by taking arbitrary covers (not necessarily open).