Minimal direct products

A space is called minimal if it admits a minimal continuous selfmap. We give examples of metrizable continua $X$ admitting both minimal homeomorphisms and minimal noninvertible maps, whose squares $X\times X$ are not minimal, i.e., they admit neither minimal homeomorphisms nor minimal noninvertible maps, thus providing a definitive answer to a question posed by Bruin, Kolyada and the second author in 2003. (In 2018, Boro\'nski, Clark and Oprocha provided an answer in the case when only homeomorphisms were considered.) Then we introduce and study the notion of product-minimality. We call a compact metrizable space $Y$ product-minimal if, for every minimal system $(X,T)$ given by a metrizable space $X$ and a continuous selfmap $T$, there is a continuous map $S\colon Y\to Y$ such that the product $(X\times Y,T\times S)$ is minimal. If such a map $S$ always exists in the class of homeomorphisms, we say that $Y$ is a homeo-product-minimal space. We show that many classical examples of minimal spaces, including compact connected metrizable abelian groups, compact connected manifolds without boundary admitting a free action of a nontrivial compact connected Lie group, and many others, are in fact homeo-product-minimal.