Geometric and homotopy theoretic methods in Nielsen coincidence theory (Q2491519)

Let \(f_1, f_2: M \to N\) be two maps between smooth manifolds \(M\) and \(N\). The author introduces two Nielsen type numbers \(N(f_1, f_2)\) and \(N^\sharp(f_1, f_2)\), which are both lower bounds for the number of the coincidence points of \(f_1\) and \(f_2\), and lower bounds for the number of components of the coincidence point sets of \(f_1\) and \(f_2\). If \(M\) and \(N\) have the same dimension, either \(N(f_1, f_2)\) or \(N^\sharp(f_1, f_2)\) is just the original Nielsen coincidence number. The classification of coincidence point sets is the same as the original one, but the essentiality of a coincidence class depends on the corresponding element in a kind of a normal bordism group. The significance of this paper is the estimation of coincidence points when \(\dim M -\dim N\) is positive. If \(\dim M -\dim N>0\), the coincidence points of \(f_1\) and \(f_2\) may form an infinite set. The author also obtains some conditions related to finiteness of the coincidence points of \(f_1\) and \(f_2\).