The topological complexity and the homotopy cofiber of the diagonal map for non-orientable surfaces (Q2821759)

The topological complexity \(\mathrm {TC}(X)\) of a space \(X\) is a numerical homotopy invariant introduced by \textit{M. Farber} in [Discrete Comput. Geom. 29 No. 2, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)] in order to study the motion planning problem in Robotics from a topological perspective.NEWLINENEWLINEFarber computed, by using cohomological estimates, the topological complexity of several interesting spaces, including the orientable surfaces. However the used techniques were not applicable to non-orientable surfaces. Therefore this case was unsolved and left as an open problem.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the paper under review the author makes a big step towards solution of this problem by proving that the topological complexity of a non-orientable surface of genus \(g>4\) is NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\mathrm {TC}(N_g)=4.NEWLINE\]NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe author also deals with the comparison between the topological complexity \(\mathrm {TC}(N_g)\) and the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category \(\mathrm {cat}(C_{\Delta N_g})\) of the homotopy cofiber of the diagonal map \(\Delta :N_g\rightarrow N_g\times N_g.\) Actually, he proves that \(\mathrm {cat}(C_{\Delta N_g})=3\) for any genus \(g.\) Combining this result with \(\mathrm {TC}(N_g)=4\) for \(g>4\), a family of counterexamples to the general conjecture \(\mathrm {TC}(X)=\mathrm {cat}(C_{\Delta X}),\) first studied in [\textit{J. M. García Calcines} and \textit{L. Vandembroucq}, Math. Z. 274, No. 1--2, 145--165 (2013; Zbl 1275.55003)] and [\textit{A. Dranishnikov}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 142, No. 12, 4365--4376 (2014; Zbl 1305.55003)] is obtained.NEWLINENEWLINEThe author also presents a short illustrative counterexample to the conjecture above. Concretely, if \(K=K(H,1)\) denotes the classifying space for Higman's group \(H\), then it is shown that \(\mathrm {cat}(C_{\Delta K})=2\), in contrast with the already established computation \(\mathrm {TC}(K)=4\) in [\textit{M. Grant} et al., Topology Appl. 189, 78--91 (2015; Zbl 1317.55003)].