Simple homotopy types and finite spaces

We present a new approach to simple homotopy theory of polyhedra using finite topological spaces. We define the concept of collapse of a finite space and prove that this new notion corresponds exactly to the concept of a simplicial collapse. More precisely, we show that a collapse X ↘ Y of finite sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Barmak, J.A., Minian, E.G.
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2008
Country:Argentina
Institution:Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales
Repository:Biblioteca Digital (UBA-FCEN)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:paperaa:paper_00018708_v218_n1_p87_Barmak
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_00018708_v218_n1_p87_Barmak
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Finite spaces
Posets
Simple homotopy equivalences
Simple homotopy types
Simplicial complexes
Weak homotopy equivalences
Description
Summary:We present a new approach to simple homotopy theory of polyhedra using finite topological spaces. We define the concept of collapse of a finite space and prove that this new notion corresponds exactly to the concept of a simplicial collapse. More precisely, we show that a collapse X ↘ Y of finite spaces induces a simplicial collapse K (X) ↘ K (Y) of their associated simplicial complexes. Moreover, a simplicial collapse K ↘ L induces a collapse X (K) ↘ X (L) of the associated finite spaces. This establishes a one-to-one correspondence between simple homotopy types of finite simplicial complexes and simple equivalence classes of finite spaces. We also prove a similar result for maps: We give a complete characterization of the class of maps between finite spaces which induce simple homotopy equivalences between the associated polyhedra. This class describes all maps coming from simple homotopy equivalences at the level of complexes. The advantage of this theory is that the elementary move of finite spaces is much simpler than the elementary move of simplicial complexes: It consists of removing (or adding) just a single point of the space. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.