Cone length and Lusternik-Schnirelmann category in rational homotopy
Abstract
Lusternik-Schnirelmann category (LS-category) of a topological space is the least integer such that there is a covering of by open sets, each of them being contractible in . The cone length is the minimum number of cofibations necessary to get a space in the homotopy type of , starting from a suspension and attaching suspensions. The LS-category of a space is always less than or equal to its cone length. Moreover, these two invariants differ by at most one. In 1981, J.-M. Lemaire and F. Sigrist conjectured that they are always equal for rational spaces. This conjecture is clearly true for spaces of LS-category 1 and, in 1986, Y. F\'elix and J-C. Thomas verify it for spaces of LS-category 2. But, in 1999, the general conjecture is invalidated by N. Dupont who built a rational space of cone-length 4 and LS-category 3. In this work, we provide examples of rational spaces of cone-length and LS-category for any .
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.12671,
title = {Cone length and Lusternik-Schnirelmann category in rational homotopy},
author = {Paul-Eugène Parent and Daniel Tanré},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.12671},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Final version