Whitney-sums (fibre-joins) in over space theory and obstruction theory for cohomology with local coefficients

Abstract

SynopsisThe generalised Whitney sum (fibre-join) and the h-fibre-join can be defined in topM, the category of spaces over M. We note here some general properties of these constructions, and, as a specific example, we consider the relation between them and the extensions to the topM category of the top h-fibre-sequences F∗ΩB→E ∪ CF→B determined by top fibrations F→E→B. As an application we obtain the truncated local coefficient cohomology sequence for a top fibration which is topM principal fibration: this situation applies, for example, to the various stages of the Postnikov decomposition of a non-simply connected space X, and in this case we have M = K1(π1(X)).