Construction of multiply fixed \(n\)-valued maps (Q891268)

The paper studies the Nielsen theory of a certain class of \(n\)-valued maps of a space \(\tilde X\). The data to construct a multivalued map in the class is an \(n\)-fold covering \(p: \tilde X \to X\) and a self-map \(f:X \to X\). The corresponding \(n\)-valued map is denoted by \(\phi_{p,f}: \tilde X \multimap \tilde X\) and defined by \( \phi_{p,f}(\tilde x)=\{p^{-1}(fp(\tilde x))\}\). The main goal of the first part of the work, section 2, is to provide a formula which relates the Nielsen number \(N (\phi_{p,f})\) of \(\phi_{p,f}\) with the Nielsen number \(N(f)\) of \(f\), the induced homomorphism \(f_{\#}\) and the monodromy action of the covering space \(p\). Namely the author shows: Theorem 2.3. Let \(\phi_{p,f}: \tilde X \multimap \tilde X\) be the \(n\)-valued lift of a Hopf map \(f:X \to X\) to the covering \(p:\tilde X \to X\). Let \(\mathcal F_1,\dots,\mathcal F_{N(f)}\) be the essential fixed point classes of \(f\) and let \(x_j\) be any point of \(\mathcal F_j\), then \[ N (\phi_{p,f})=\Sigma_{j=1}^{N(f)}\#(p^{-1}(x_j)/Fix(f_{\pi},x_j)). \] The subgroup \(Fix(f_{\pi},x_j)\subset \pi_1(X, x_j)\) consists of the elements of \(\pi_1(X, x_j)\) fixed by the homomorphisms \(f_{\pi}\). Then the last part of the paper is an application of the result above to several spaces like graphs, handlebodies, free \(G\)-spaces and infranilmanifolds. The paper is clearly written and it contains many comments about the early development of the subject which are helpful to contextualize the results of the paper.