Products of compacta with polyhedra and topological spaces in the shape category (Q2568724)

For \(H\) the homotopy functor, \(S\) the shape functor and \(SH\) their composition, and \(X\), \(Y\) topological spaces, let \(X\times Y\) denote their Cartesian product and \(\pi _{X}\),\(\pi _{Y}\) be the canonical projections. Then \((X\times Y,\pi _{X},\pi _{Y})\) is the product of \(X\) and \(Y\) in \(Top\),\((X\times Y,H(\pi _{X}),H(\pi _{Y}))\)\ is the product in \(HTop\). However, there are examples of spaces \(X\) and \(Y\) such that \((X\times Y,SH(\pi_{X}),SH(\pi _{Y}))\)\ is not the product of \(X\) and \(Y\) in \(SH(Top)\). The main result of the paper asserts that: If a compact Hausdorff space \(X\) has the property that for every space \(P\in HPol\), \((X\times P,S(\pi _{X}),S(\pi _{P}))\) is a product in \(Sh(Top)\), then \((X\times Y,S(\pi _{X}),S(\pi _{Y}))\) is a product in \(Sh(Top)\) for every topological space \(Y\). Another interesting result established in this paper is: For every \(Y\), \(Y'\) two topological spaces of the same homotopy type, if a topological space \(X\) has the property that \((X\times Y,S(\pi _{X}),S(\pi _{Y}))\) is a product in \(Sh(Top)\), then \((X\times Y^{\prime },S(\pi _{X}),S(\pi _{Y^{\prime }}))\) is also a product in \(Sh(Top)\). It is an open question whether, for \(X\) a compact Hausdorff space, \(X\times Y\) is a product in \(Sh(Top)\), for every topological space \(Y\).