Pré-Publicaes do Departamento de Matemática Universidade de Coimbra Preprint Number 06–3.pdfVIP

Pr´e-Publica¸c˜oes do Departamento de Matem´atica Universidade de Coimbra Preprint Number 06–37 ON SOME SPECIAL CLASSES OF CONTINUOUS MAPS MARIA MANUEL CLEMENTINO AND DIRK HOFMANN Abstract: We present a survey on recent study of special continuous maps, like biquotient, triquotient, proper, perfect, open and ´etale maps and a selection of open problems in this area. 1. Special morphisms of Top Triquotient mapswere introduced by E. Michael in [24] as those continuous maps f : X → Y for which there exists a map ( )♯ : OX → OY such that, for every U, V in the lattice OX of open subsets of X : (T1) U♯ ⊆ f (U ), (T2) X ♯ = Y , (T3) U ⊆ V ⇒ U♯ ⊆ V ♯ , ♯ −1 ♯ (T4) (∀y ∈ U ) (∀Σ ⊆ OX directed) f (y) ∩ U ⊆ Σ ⇒ ∃S ∈ Σ : y ∈ S . It is easy to check that, if f : X → Y is an open surjection, then the direct image f ( ) : OX → OY satisfies (T1)-(T4). If f : X → Y is a retraction, so that there exists a continuous map s : Y → X with f ◦ s = 1Y , then ( )♯ := s−1 ( ) satisfies (T1)-(T4). Moreover, if f : X → Y is a proper surjection (by proper map we mean a closed map with compact fibres: see [2]), then U♯ := Y \ f (X \ U ) fulfills (T1)-(T4). That is, open surjections, retractions and proper surjections are triquotient maps. But there are triquotient maps which are neither of these maps (cf. [3, 15] for examples). However, we do not know whether these three classes of maps describe completely triquotient maps, in the sense we state now: Received August 24, 2005. The authors acknowledge partial financial assistance by Centro de Matem´atica da Universidade de Coimbra/FCT and by Unidade de Investiga¸c˜ao e Desenvolvimento Matem´atica e Ap