Noncompact manifolds that are inward tame (Q523421)

The paper under review continues the analysis of the topology at infinity of non-compact manifolds, started by the the first author almost 20 years ago [\textit{C. R. Guilbault}, Geom. Topol. 4, 537--579 (2000; Zbl 0958.57023)]. The starting point to generalize and carry forward is Siebenmann's well-known ``open collar theorem'' that characterizes manifolds \(M\) (of dimension greater than four) which are homeomorphic to \(\partial M \times [0,1)\), in terms of a nice algebraic condition (called \textit{stability}) on the fundamental group at infinity. About 10 years ago the authors [\textit{C. R. Guilbault} and \textit{F. C. Tinsley}, Geom. Topol. 10, 541--556 (2006; Zbl 1130.57032)] provided a similar classification of \textit{pseudo-collar} manifolds. The present paper investigates \(n\)-manifolds with compact boundary which are \textit{inward tame}, a weaker topological condition at infinity. Now, let us recall that a manifold \(N^n\) with compact boundary is a \textit{homotopy collar} if the inclusion \(\partial N^n \to N^n\) is a homotopy equivalence, while \(N^n\) is called a \textit{pseudo-collar} if it is a homotopy collar containing arbitrarily small homotopy-collar neighborhoods of infinity. The manifold is called \textit{nearly pseudocollarable} if there is a sequence of neighborhoods of infinity such that the corresponding sequence of fundamental groups satisfies some technical conditions. Finally, \(N^n\) is called \textit{inward tame} if, for arbitrarily small neighborhoods of infinity \(W\), there are homotopies \(H: W \times [0,1] \to W\) such that \(H_0=id\) and \(H_1(W)\) is compact (hence, inward tameness actually means that each neighborhood of infinity can be pulled into a subset of itself). Whenever all these neighborhoods of infinity have finite homotopy type, the manifold is called \textit{absolutely inward tame}. Note that all the different end structures (collar, open-collar, inward tame) are somehow correlated to the algebraic structure of the fundamental group at infinity, namely with the algebra of inverse sequences of fundamental groups of neighborhoods of infinity. For this reason the following relevant conditions are considered and carefully studied in the paper. Two sequences are \textit{pro-isomorphic} if they are equivalent as inverse sequences (i.e. if there exists a commuting diagram, after passing to some subsequences). An inverse sequence is \textit{stable} if it is pro-isomorphic to a constant sequence, and it is called \textit{semi stable} if it is pro-isomorphic to a sequence of epimorphisms. An inverse sequence is \textit{perfectly semistable} if it is pro-isomorphic to an inverse sequence of finitely presentable groups with surjections, whose kernels are perfect groups. The authors then consider also two variations of the last condition, defining \(\mathcal {AP}\)-semistable (\textit{almost perfectly semistable}) and \(\mathcal {SAP}\)-semistable (\textit{strongly almost perfectly semistable}) inverse sequences. We are now ready now to give a precise statement of all the results involved in the present paper (that is quite technical but careful, precise and interesting): {Theorem 1:} Every inward tame manifold with compact boundary has \(\mathcal {AP}\)-semistable fundamental group at each end. {Theorem 2:} A one-ended \(n\)-manifold (with \(n\geq6\)) with compact boundary is nearly pseudocollarable iff it is absolutely inward tame with a \(\mathcal {SAP}\)-semistable fundamental group at infinity. {Theorem 3:} In any dimension \(n\geq 6\), there are open, one-ended absolutely inward tame manifolds which but do not have a \(\mathcal {SAP}\)-semistable fundamental group at infinity and (hence they cannot be nearly pseudocollarable).