Order of a function on the Bruschlinsky group of a two-dimensional polyhedron

Abstract

Homotopy classes of mappings of a compact polyhedron X to the circle T form an Abelian group B(X), which is called the Bruschlinsky group and is cananically isomorphic to H 1 (X; ℤ), Let L be an Abelian group, and let f: B(X) → L be a function. One says that the order of f does not exceed r if for each mapping a: X → T the value f([a]) is ℤ-linearly expressed via the characteristic function I r (a): (X × T) r → ℤ of (Γ a ) r , where Γ a ⊂ X × T is the graph of a. The (algebraic) degree of f is not greater than r if the finite differences of f of order r + 1 vanish. Conjecturally, the order of f is equal to the algebraic degree of f. The conjecture is proved in the case where dim X ≤ 2. Bibliography: 1 title.