Basic examples show that coincidence theory is intimately related to central subjects of differential topology and homotopy theory such as Kervaire invariants and divisibility properties of Whitehead products and of Hopf invariants. We recall some recent results and ask a few questions which seem to be important for a more comprehensive understanding.
Let K be a CW-complex of dimension 3 such that H³(K;ℤ) = 0, and M a closed manifold of dimension 3 with a base point a ∈ M. We study the problem of existence of a map f: K → M which is strongly surjective, i.e. such that MR[f,a] ≠ 0. In particular if M = S¹ × S² we show that there is no f: K → S¹ × S² which is strongly surjective. On the other hand, for M the non-orientable S¹-bundle over S² there exists a complex K and f: K → M such that MR[f,a] ≠ 0.
Let K be a CW-complex of dimension 3 such that H 3(K;ℤ) = 0 and the orbit space of the 3-sphere with respect to the action of the quaternion group Q 8 determined by the inclusion Q 8 ⊆ . Given a point a ∈ , we show that there is no map f:K → which is strongly surjective, i.e., such that MR[f,a]=min(g −1(a))|g ∈ [f] ≠ 0.
Given a model 2-complex K P of a group presentation P, we associate to it an integer matrix ΔP and we prove that a cellular map f: K P → S 2 is root free (is not strongly surjective) if and only if the diophantine linear system ΔP Y = (f) has an integer solution, here (f)is the so-called vector-degree of f
For some classes of closed subsets of the disc ₙ ⊂ ℝⁿ we prove that every Hausdorff-continuous mapping f: X → X has a fixed point A ∈ X in the sense that the intersection A ∩ f(A) is nonempty.
We study a coincidence problem of the form A(x) ∈ ϕ (x), where A is a linear Fredholm operator with nonnegative index between Banach spaces and ϕ is a multivalued A-fundamentally contractible map (in particular, it is not necessarily compact). The main tool is a coincidence index, which becomes the well known Leray-Schauder fixed point index when A=id and ϕ is a compact singlevalued map. An application to boundary value problems for differential equations in Banach spaces is given.
We give an algorithm to compute the coincidence Nielsen number N(f,g), introduced in [DJ], for pairs of maps into real projective spaces.