O'Farrell, Anthony G. (2004) Conjugacy, involutions, and reversibility for real homeomorphisms. Bulletin of the Irish Mathematical Society, 54 (Winter). pp. 41-52. ISSN 0791-5578

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Abstract

The classification up to conjugacy of the homeomorphisms of the real line onto itself is well-understood by the experts, but there does not appear to be an exposition in print. In other words, it is mathematical folklore. In this expository paper, we give a complete but concise account of the classification, in terms of a suitable topological signature concept. A topological signature is a kind of pattern of signs. We provide similar classifications for homeomorphisms that fix a given subset, and for germs of homeomorphisms at a point. For direction-reversing homeomorphisms, we show that the signature of the compositional square is antisymmetric. We go on to apply the conjugacy classification and signatures to reprove recent results of Jarczyk on the composition of involutions. His results classify the reversible homeomorphisms (the composition of two involutions), and show that each homeomorphism is the composition of at most four involutions. The reversible direction-preserving homeomorphisms have symmetric signatures.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Corrigendum Secundum to "Conjugacy, Involutions, and Reversibility for Real Homeomorphisms" http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/ims/bull56/corrigendum56.pdf Bulletin of the Irish Mathematical Society Vol. 56, Winter 2005.
Keywords:	Conjugacy; involutions; reversibility; real homeomorphisms; topological signature; special signatures.
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Mathematics and Statistics
Item ID:	1811
Depositing User:	Prof. Anthony O'Farrell
Date Deposited:	25 Jan 2010 16:20
Journal or Publication Title:	Bulletin of the Irish Mathematical Society
Publisher:	Irish Mathematical Society
Refereed:	No
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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