Function space of continuous maps from Peano continuum to tree I (Q820701)

A continuum is a compact connected metrizable space. A Peano continuum is a locally connected continuum. For a given a finite tree \(T\) and its endpoint \(v\), the authors of this paper consider a natural partial order \(\leq \) such that \(v\) is the greatest element in \(T\). For a compact metric space \(X\) and a continuous map \(f : X \to T\), consider the hypograph of \(f\) that is denoted by \(\downarrow f\) and defined by \(\downarrow f = \{(x, t) : t \leq f(x)\}\) and \(\downarrow C(X, T) = \{\downarrow f : f\) is continuous from \(X\) to \(T\}\). The authors investigate the subspace \(\downarrow C(X, T)\) of the family of all non-empty closed sets in \(X\times T\) with the Hausdorff distance. The main result in this work states that: For every non-degenerate Peano continuum \(X\) and a tree \(T\) with \(n\) segments \(\{S_1, S_2, \dots , S_n\}\), \(\downarrow C(X, T)\approx \bigoplus ^n_{i=1} \downarrow CUB(S_i)\), where \(CUB(S_i) = \{f \in C(X, T) : \mathrm{max}f(X)\in S_i\}\). Moreover, every \(\downarrow CUB(S_i)\) is contractible and a connected component of \(\downarrow C(X, T)\). Thereby \(\downarrow C(X, T)\) has \(n\) connected components. In Sections 3 the authors study some properties of \(\downarrow C(X,T)\), Lemmas 8, 9 and 10 are helpful in the sequel. In Section 4 a homotopy on \( \downarrow C(X,T)\) is defined. At the end of Section 4 these results are used by the authors in the proof of the main result.