Cotelescopes and derived limits (Q2577125)

The object of this paper is to give direct constructions of cotelescopes and derived limits for arbitrary diagrams of topological spaces and of groups, respectively. In case \(\mathbf X\) is an inverse system of topological spaces, then there exists an object \(T(\mathbf X)\) called the cotelescope of \(\mathbf X\) and another object \(\mathbf T(\mathbf X)\) called the cotelescope system. This is described in [\textit{S. Mardešić}, Strong Shape and Homology, Springer, (Berlin) (2000; Zbl 0939.55007)], where the author points out that coherent mappings of inverse systems can be replaced by mappings of cotelescope systems, and that this is important in the study of strong shape. In the current paper, the authors substitute inverse systems by objects \(\mathbf X\) called diagrams of topological spaces or of groups. They arrive at a ``cotelescope'' designated coTel\(^1(\mathbf X)\) for such a category, which is somewhat different from the previous notion. There is an appropriate definition of first derived limit designated lim\(_M^1\mathbf X\) and also of the inverse limit, lim\(\mathbf X\). In case \(\mathbf X\) is an inverse sequence of groups, then the definition of lim\(^1\) coincides with the usual one. If, for example, one is given a short exact sequence of diagrams of groups, then Theorem 1.1 shows the existence of an induced natural exact sequence consisting of six nontrivial terms which involve lim and lim\(^1\). Theorem 2.4 yields for every \(n\geq 0\), a natural short exact sequence: \[ *\rightarrow\,\,\text{lim}_M^1\pi_{n+1}(\mathbf X,\mathbf x) \rightarrow\pi_n\big(\text{coTel}_M^1(\mathbf X,\mathbf x)\big)\rightarrow\text{lim}\,\pi_n(\mathbf X,\mathbf x)\rightarrow* \] \flushpar of homotopy groups whenever one begins with a diagram \((\mathbf X,\mathbf x)\) of pointed topological spaces.