Effectual topological complexity

Abstract

We introduce the effectual topological complexity (ETC) of a [Formula: see text]-space [Formula: see text]. This is a [Formula: see text]-equivariant homotopy invariant sitting in between the effective topological complexity of the pair [Formula: see text] and the (regular) topological complexity of the orbit space [Formula: see text]. We study ETC for spheres and surfaces with antipodal involution, obtaining a full computation in the case of the torus. This allows us to prove the vanishing of twice the nontrivial obstruction responsible for the fact that the topological complexity of the Klein bottle is [Formula: see text]. In addition, this gives a counterexample to the possibility — suggested in Pavešić’s work on the topological complexity of a map — that ETC of [Formula: see text] would agree with Farber’s [Formula: see text] whenever the projection map [Formula: see text] is finitely sheeted. We conjecture that ETC of spheres with antipodal action recasts the Hopf invariant one problem, and describe (conjecturally optimal) effectual motion planners.