The Dax isomorphism for topological $4$-manifolds

RESUMO

Let $X$ be an oriented topological $4$-manifold with boundary. We establish a Dax isomorphism for the fundamental group of the space of embedded arcs in $X$. Here, the embedding space can be either the simplicial set of locally flat embeddings or the space of topological embeddings endowed with the compact-open topology. When $X$ is smooth, we show that the space of smooth arcs and topological arcs have canonically isomorphic fundamental groups, and the topological Dax isomorphism agrees with the smooth Dax isomorphism. As a consequence, the homomorphisms that arise in the smooth Dax isomorphism do not depend on the smooth structure.