English

Topological complexity of n points on a tree

Algebraic Topology 2018-03-16 v3

Abstract

The topological complexity of a path-connected space X,X, denoted TC(X),TC(X), can be thought of as the minimum number of continuous rules needed to describe how to move from one point in XX to another. The space XX is often interpreted as a configuration space in some real-life context. Here, we consider the case where XX is the space of configurations of nn points on a tree Γ.\Gamma. We will be interested in two such configuration spaces. In the, first, denoted Cn(Γ),C^n(\Gamma), the points are distinguishable, while in the second, UCn(Γ),UC^n(\Gamma), the points are indistinguishable. We determine TC(UCn(Γ))TC(UC^n(\Gamma)) for any tree Γ\Gamma and many values of n,n, and consequently determine TC(Cn(Γ))TC(C^n(\Gamma)) for the same values of nn (provided the configuration spaces are path-connected).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1607.08185,
  title  = {Topological complexity of n points on a tree},
  author = {Steven Scheirer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.08185},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

33 pages, 13 figures. Corrected an error in the proof of Lemma 3.6

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:05:51.142Z