Motion planning in real flag manifolds (Q505372)

If \(P(X)\) denotes the space of free paths in a given space \(X\), the topological complexity of \(X,\) denoted as \(\mathrm{TC}(X),\) is defined as the reduced Schwarz genus (or sectional category) of the fibration \(e:P(X)\rightarrow X\times X\) given by \(e(\gamma )=(\gamma (0),\gamma (1)).\) This 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. Perhaps one of the most successful estimates of topological complexity is \(\mathrm{zcl}_R(X)\leq\mathrm{TC}(X)\leq \frac{2d}{e}\) when \(X\) has the homotopy type of an \((e-1)\)-connected CW-complex of dimension \(d.\) Here \(R\) denotes an arbitrary commutative ring with unit and, if \(\Delta :X\rightarrow X\times X\) stands for the diagonal inclusion, then \(\mathrm{zcl}_R(X)\) denotes the nilpotency index of the kernel of the map induced in cohomology \(\Delta ^*:H^*(X\times X;R)\rightarrow H^*(X;R)\). The notion of topological complexity was generalized by \textit{Y. B. Rudyak}, who defined in [Topology Appl. 157, No. 5, 916--920 (2010; Zbl 1187.55001); erratum ibid. 157, No. 6, 1118 (2010)] the \(s\)-topological complexity of a space \(X,\) \(\mathrm{TC}_s(X),\) as the reduced Schwarz genus of the \(s\)-th fold evaluation map \(e_s:P(X)\rightarrow X^s\), given by \(e_s(\gamma )=(\gamma (0),\gamma (\frac{1}{s-1}),\gamma (\frac{2}{s-1}),\dots,\gamma (\frac{s-2}{s-1}),\gamma (1)).\) Similar cohomological estimates are given for this generalization. In the paper under review the authors present a thorough discussion of the topological complexity of semi-complete flag manifolds \(F_{k,m}.\) These are the Grassmann type manifolds consisting of \(k+1\) tuples \((L_1,\dots,L_k,V)\) of mutually orthogonal linear subspaces of \(\mathbb{R}^{m+k}\) with \(\dim(V)=m\) and \(\dim(L_i)=1\) for \(1\leq i\leq k.\) In order to do this discussion they first give a minimal presentation of the cohomology ring with \(\mathbb{F}_2\) coefficients for this class of spaces. In particular this allows them to estimate Farber's topological complexity of \(F_{k,m}\) when \(m\) approaches a 2-power. They also study and discuss their corresponding Rudyak higher analogues of topological complexity, obtaining the unexpected fact that, as \(s\) increases, their cohomological estimates become stronger. Finally the authors give the computation of the \(s\)-th topological complexity of all closed surfaces (orientable or not), for \(s\geq 3.\)