Nielsen numbers for maps of triads (Q689944)

A triad is a triple of spaces \((X,A_ 1,A_ 2)\) where \(X=A_ 1\cup A_ 2\). In this paper, \(X\) is a compact connected polyhedron and the \(A_ i\) are subpolyhedra. Several standard topological constructions give rise to triad structures, for instance, the suspension of a polyhedron, in which the \(A_ i\) are cones, the double of a manifold with boundary, the connected sum of two manifolds, and the addition of a handle to a manifold. The author studies the fixed point theory of maps that preserve the triad structure, with respect to homotopies that do the same. For a map \(f: (X,A_ 1,A_ 2)\to (X,A_ 1,A_ 2)\), she defines the Nielsen number for the triad map, \(N(f;A_ 1\cup A_ 2)\), that is a lower bound for the number of fixed points of all maps of the triad homotopic to \(f\). The paper contains a thorough discussion of the computation of this Nielsen number, relating it to the relative Nielsen number [the author, Pac. J. Math. 122, 459-473 (1986; Zbl 0553.55001)] and the Nielsen number of the complement [\textit{Zhao Xuezhi}, Topological fixed point theory and applications, Proc. Conf., Tianjin/China 1988, Lect. Notes Math. 1411, 189-199 (1989; Zbl 0689.55008)]. In particular, the author obtains computational results for the topological constructions mentioned earlier. The final section of the paper presents conditions under which the bound on the number of fixed points is sharp, in the sense that, given \(f: (X,A_ 1,A_ 2)\to (X,A_ 1,A_ s)\), there is a map \(g\) of the triad, homotopic to \(f\) and with precisely \(N(f;A_ 1\cup A_ 2)\) fixed points. Specialized to the standard constructions, the conditions are general enough to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theory. For instance, let \(M\) be a compact, connected, triangulated \(n\)-manifold with nonempty boundary \(\partial M\), let \(f: (M,\partial M)\to (M,\partial M)\) be a boundary-preserving map, let \(DM= M_ +\cup M_ -\) be the double of \(M\), and let \(Df: (DM,M_ +,M_ -)\to (DM,M_ +,D_ -)\) be the double of \(f\). If the dimension \(n\geq 4\), then there exists \(g: (M,\partial M)\to (M,\partial M)\) homotopic to \(f\) such that \(Dg\) has \(N(f;A_ 1\cup A_ 2)\) fixed points.