A new explicit way of obtaining special generic maps into the 3-dimensional Euclidean space

Abstract

A special generic map is a smooth map regarded as a natural generalization of Morse functions with just 2 singular points on homotopy spheres. Canonical projections of unit spheres are simplest examples of such maps and manifolds admitting special generic maps into the plane are completely determined by Saeki in 1993 and ones admitting such maps into general Euclidean spaces are determined under appropriate conditions. Moreover, if the difference of dimensions of source and target manifolds are not so large, then the diffeomorphism types of source manifolds are often limited. These explicit facts make special generic maps attractive objects in the theory of Morse functions and higher dimensional versions and application to algebraic and differentiable topology of manifolds, which is an important study in both singuarity theory of maps and algebraic and differential topology of manifolds. In this paper, we demonstrate a way of construction of special generic maps into the 3-dimensional Euclidean space. For this, first we prepare maps onto 2-dimensional polyhedra regarded as simplicial maps naturally called pseudo quotient maps, which are generalizations of the quotient maps to the spaces of all the connected components of inverse images, so-called Reeb spaces of original smooth maps, being fundamental and important tools in the studies. The success of the construction explicitly shows that a class of maps which seems to cover a larger class of source manifolds may not be not so large and that the diffeomorphism types of source manifolds may be restricted as strongly as special generic maps. We also explain differential topological facts and problems related to this.