English

Counterexamples to the topological Tverberg conjecture

Combinatorics 2020-06-02 v2 Algebraic Topology Metric Geometry

Abstract

The "topological Tverberg conjecture" by B\'ar\'any, Shlosman and Sz\H{u}cs (1981) states that any continuous map of a simplex of dimension (r1)(d+1)(r-1)(d+1) to Rd\mathbb{R}^d maps points from rr disjoint faces of the simplex to the same point in Rd\mathbb{R}^d. This was established for affine maps by Tverberg (1966), for the case when rr is a prime by B\'ar\'any et al., and for prime power rr by \"Ozaydin (1987). We combine the generalized van Kampen theorem announced by Mabillard and Wagner (2014) with the constraint method of Blagojevi\'c, Ziegler and the author (2014), and thus prove the existence of counterexamples to the topological Tverberg conjecture for any number rr of faces that is not a prime power. However, these counterexamples require that the dimension dd of the codomain is sufficiently high: the smallest counterexample we obtain is for a map of the 100100-dimensional simplex to R19\mathbb{R}^{19}, for r=6r=6.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1502.00947,
  title  = {Counterexamples to the topological Tverberg conjecture},
  author = {Florian Frick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.00947},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

3 pages, to appear in Oberwolfach Reports. This version differs from the Oberwolfach Reports version in two updated references. This manuscript is now part of arXiv:1510.07984

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:20:52.983Z