A core-free semicovering of the Hawaiian earring (Q391370)

Semicoverings [\textit{J. Brazas}, Homology Homotopy Appl. 14, No. 1, 33--63 (2012; Zbl 1244.57010)] are a generalization of covering space theory. While the crucial property of a covering map is that of evenly covered neighborhoods, a semicovering is defined to be a local homeomorphism with unique continuous lifting of paths and their homotopies. In the case of a connected, locally path-connected space \((X,x_0)\) both structures have a similar classification: \(\bullet\) connected coverings correspond to conjugacy classes of those open subgroups of \(\pi_1(X,x_0)\) which contain an open normal subgroup of \(\pi_1(X,x_0)\). (proved by \textit{H. Torabi, A. Pakdaman} and \textit{B. Mashayekhy} [''On the Spanier Groups and Covering and Semicovering Spaces'' (2012), \url{arXiv: 1207.4394}]). \(\bullet\) connected semicoverings correspond open subgroups of \(\pi_1(X,x_0)\), cf. \textit{J. Brazas} [loc. cit.]. It follows from the mentioned papers that there exists an open subgroup of the fundamental group of the Hawaiian Earring HE which does not contain an open normal subgroup. In particular, the corresponding semicovering is not a covering. In this paper the authors provide an even stronger counterexample: a semicovering \(p: \widehat {HE}\to HE\) whose corresponding subgroup of \(\pi_1(HE)\) does not contain any normal subgroup. The space \(\widehat {HE}\) is constructed from a certain tree by attaching appropriate ``smaller'' copies of HE (i.e., \(HE\) without the loops corresponding to the outgoing edges at the vertex) at vertices. The space \(\widehat {HE}\) is not a covering since the global valence of the graph is not bounded. However, it is a semicovering since the valence at every point is finite. The condition on the corresponding group is satisfied by making sure that each essential loop in \(HE\) has a lift in \(\widehat {HE}\) which is not a loop.