Paper 2, Section II, H

Algebraic Topology | Part II, 2011

Explain what is meant by a covering projection. State and prove the pathlifting property for covering projections, and indicate briefly how it generalizes to a lifting property for homotopies between paths. [You may assume the Lebesgue Covering Theorem.]

Let XX be a simply connected space, and let GG be a subgroup of the group of all homeomorphisms XXX \rightarrow X. Suppose that, for each xXx \in X, there exists an open neighbourhood UU of xx such that Ug[U]=U \cap g[U]=\emptyset for each gGg \in G other than the identity. Show that the projection p:XX/Gp: X \rightarrow X / G is a covering projection, and deduce that Π1(X/G)G\Pi_{1}(X / G) \cong G.

By regarding S3S^{3} as the set of all quaternions of modulus 1 , or otherwise, show that there is a quotient space of S3S^{3} whose fundamental group is a non-abelian group of order 8.8 .

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