No label defined (Q4342148)

This article surveys the most important achievements of the technique of absorbing sets in topological recognition of some infinite-dimensional manifolds as well as pairs and tuples of infinite-dimensional manifolds. The general results stated in the first part of the paper are applied in the second part to investigating the topology of homeomorphism groups of manifolds. The author considers mainly the group \({\mathcal H} (X)\) of all homeomorphisms of a finite-dimensional (possibly PL-) manifold \(X\) and subgroups \({\mathcal H}^{\text{PL}} (X)\), \({\mathcal H}^{\text{LIP}} (X)\subset{\mathcal H}(X)\) consisting of PL-homeomorphisms and locally LIP-homeomorphisms, respectively. Using their stability properties, the author proves that in some cases (as a rule if \(\dim(X)\leq 2)\) the groups \({\mathcal H}(X)\), \({\mathcal H}^{\text{LIP}} (X)\), \({\mathcal H}^{\text{PL}} (X)\) as well as pairs and triples of these groups are topological manifolds modeled on some well-known model spaces (pairs, or triples) such as \(s\), \(\Sigma\), \(\sigma\), \(\sigma^\infty\), or \((s,\Sigma,\sigma)\). Similar results are stated also for some other homeomorphism groups, e.g. for the group of all quasiconformal homeomorphisms of a Riemann surface. The light style of writing, careful selection of results, good taste in motivation, and absence of proofs makes this article a good source for novices to go into the subject and feel its inner logic.