Rigidity of hyperspaces (Q2340841)

Let \(X\) be a continuum and define \(C_n(X)\) as the hyperspace that contains all subsets of \(X\) that have at most \(n\) components. These hyperspaces are considered to be endowed with the topology defined by the Hausdorff metric. The collection of all singletons in \(C_n(X)\) forms a subspace that is homeomorphic to \(X\) and is denoted as \(F_1(X)\). The hyperspace \(C_n(X)\) is called \textit{rigid} provided that, for each homeomorphism \(h:C_n(X)\to C_n(Y)\), we have \(h(F_1(X))=F_1(Y)\). The authors start this article with some preliminary results on wired continua and then proceed to study the rigidity of \(C_n(X)\) when \(X\) is a Peano continuum or a smooth fan. The fourth section of this paper contains various results that describe the relations between rigidity of \(C_n(X)\), the property of being almost meshed and the existence of tails in \(X\) whenever \(X\) is a Peano continuum. For smooth fans the authors prove in the fifth section that \(C_1(X)\) is rigid iff no end point of \(X\) is a point of local compactness.