On homotopy types of diffeological cell complexes

Abstract

We introduce the notion of smooth cell complexes and its subclass consisting of gathered cell complexes within the category of diffeological spaces (cf. Definitions 1 and 3). It is shown that the following hold. (1) With respect to the D-topology, every smooth cell complex is a topological cell complex (cf. Proposition 2). It is paracompact and Hausdorff if it is countable (cf. Proposition 8). (2) Every continuous map between gathered cell complexes is continuously homotopic to a smooth map (cf. Theorem 5). (3) Any topological cell complex is continuously homotopy equivalent to a gathered (hence smooth) cell complex (cf. Theorem 6). (4) Every D-open cover of a smooth countable cell complex has a subordinate partition of unity by smooth functions (cf. Theorem 9).