\(\frac{1}{2}\)-homogeneous \(n\)-fold hyperspace suspensions (Q484286)

A metric continuum is \(1\over m\)-homogeneous if its group of self homeomorphisms contains exactly \(m\) orbits. Given a continuum \(X\), \(C_n(X)\) denotes the hyperspace of nonempty closed subsets of \(X\) with at most \(n\) components and \(F_n(X)\) denotes the hyperspace of nonempty subsets of \(X\) with at most \(n\) points, the hyperspace \(C_n(X)\) is considered with the Hausdorff metric. Notice that \(F_n(X)\) is contained in \(C_n(X)\), so it is possible to define the quotient continuum \(HS_n(X)\) which is obtained from \(C_n(X)\) by shrinking the set \(F_n(X)\) to a point. The notion of \(1\over m\)-homogeneity in hyperspaces has been studied in [\textit{S. B. Nadler jun.} and \textit{P. Pellicer-Covarrubias}, Glas. Mat., III. Ser. 41, No. 1, 141--157 (2006; Zbl 1117.54019)], [\textit{A. Illanes}, in: Continuum theory. In honor of Professor David P. Bellamy on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Proceedings of the special session held at the 6th joint international meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Sociedad Matemática Méxicana, Houston, TX, USA, May 13--15, 2004. México: Sociedad Matemática Mexicana. 45--58 (2009; Zbl 1223.54013)] and [\textit{S. Macías} and \textit{P. Pellicer-Covarrubias}, Colloq. Math. 128, No. 1, 109--132 (2012; Zbl 1275.54011)]. In this paper the authors obtain general results about \(1\over 2\)-homogeneity of the spaces \(HS_n(X)\). Many of the conclusions in the paper are of the form: Suppose that \(X\) belongs to the class of continua \(G\), then \(HS_n(X)\) is \(1\over 2\)-homogeneous if and only if \(n\) is one of the numbers \(1\) or \(2\) and \(X\) is an arc. The authors find that for the following classes of continua \(G\), the claim above holds: (a) continua containing a free arc (continua containing an arc with nonempty interior), (b) compactifications of the ray \([0,1)\), or the real line, (c) arcwise connected continua for which the hyperspace \(C(X)\) has finite dimension, (d) atriodic decomposable continua, (e) hereditarily decomposable continua \(X\) for which \(C(X)\) is homeomorphic to the cone over \(X\), (f) locally connected continua such that \(HS_n(X)\) is finite-dimensional, (g) contractible locally connected continua, (h) decomposable continua which are irreducible about a finite set of points, (i) decomposable chainable continua and (j) dendroids containing an arc without ramification points.