Universal nowhere dense subsets of locally compact manifolds (Q373655)

Let \(E\) be a space. A paracompact space \(M\) is called an \(E\)-manifold provided that each point of \(M\) has an open neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of \(E\). In this paper the authors are concerned only with such \(M\) that are \(\mathbb{I}^n\)-manifolds, \(n\leq\omega\). They are interested in a certain type of universality property. To wit, one says that a nowhere dense subset \(N\) of a space \(M\) is a universal nowhere dense set in \(M\) if for each nowhere dense subset \(A\subset M\), there is a homeomorphism \(h:M\to M\) such that \(h(A)\subset N\). Examples of such are the Cantor set in \([0,1]\) and the Sierpiński carpet \(M_1^2\) in \(\mathbb{I}^2\). The type of subset of an \(\mathbb{I}^n\)-manifold that the authors find effective is called a ``spongy set.'' Let us provide their definition. { Definition 1.2.} Let \(S\) be a subset of an \(\mathbb{I}^n\)-manifold \(M\) and \(\mathcal{C}\) the set of components of \(M\setminus S\). Then \(S\) is called a spongy set in \(M\) if: (1) \(S\) is closed and nowhere dense in \(M\), (2) \(\mathcal{C}\) is vanishing in \(M\), (3) if \(C\) and \(D\) are different elements of \(\mathcal{C}\), then their closures in \(M\) are disjoint, and (4) the closure of each \(C\in\mathcal{C}\) is a tame ball in \(M\). To say that \(\mathcal{C}\) is vanishing in \(M\) means that for every open cover \(\mathcal{U}\) of \(M\), \(\{F\in\mathcal{C}\,|\,\forall U\in\mathcal{U}, F\,\mathrm{is\,\,not\,\,a\,\,subset\,\,of\,}\, U\}\) is locally finite in \(M\). We shall not provide the definition of (4), which is a little more technical. It can be found in Definition 1.1 of the paper. However, the authors give as an example the Menger space \(M_{n-1}^n\) in \(\mathbb{I}^n\). Here are two of the main results of this paper. { Theorem 1.3.} Let \(M\) be a manifold modeled on a cube \(\mathbb{I}^n\), \(n\leq\omega\). Then, Each nowhere dense subset of \(M\) is a contained in a spongy subset of \(M\). Any two spongy subsets of \(M\) are ambiently homeomorphic. Any spongy subset of \(M\) is a universal nowhere dense subset of \(M\). { Theorem 1.4.} Any spongy subset of a Hilbert cube manifold \(M\) is a retract of \(M\) and is homeomorphic to \(M\).