Join (topology)

Geometric join of two line segments. The original spaces are shown in green and blue. The join is a three-dimensional solid in gray.

In topology, a field of mathematics, the join of two topological spaces A and B, often denoted by $A\star B$, is defined to be the quotient space

$(A\times B\times I)/R,\,$

where I is the interval [0, 1] and R is the equivalence relation generated by

$(a,b_{1},0)\sim (a,b_{2},0)\quad {\mbox{for all }}a\in A{\mbox{ and }}b_{1},b_{2}\in B,$

$(a_{1},b,1)\sim (a_{2},b,1)\quad {\mbox{for all }}a_{1},a_{2}\in A{\mbox{ and }}b\in B.$

At the endpoints, this collapses $A\times B\times \{0\}$ to $A$ and $A\times B\times \{1\}$ to $B$.

Intuitively, $A\star B$ is formed by taking the disjoint union of the two spaces and attaching a line segment joining every point in A to every point in B.

Properties

• The join is homeomorphic to sum of cartesian products of cones over spaces and spaces itself, where sum is taken over cartesian product of spaces:

$A\star B\cong C(A)\times B\cup _{A\times B}C(B)\times A.$

• Given basepointed CW complexes (A,a₀) and (B,b₀), the "reduced join"

${\frac {A\star B}{A\star \{b_{0}\}\cup \{a_{0}\}\star B}}$

is homeomorphic to the reduced suspension

$\Sigma (A\wedge B)$

of the smash product. Consequently, since ${A\star \{b_{0}\}\cup \{a_{0}\}\star B}$ is contractible, there is a homotopy equivalence

$A\star B\simeq \Sigma (A\wedge B).$

Examples

• The join of subsets of n-dimensional Euclidean space A and B is homotopy equivalent to the space of paths in n-dimensional Euclidean space, beginning in A and ending in B.
• The join of a space X with a one-point space is called the cone CX of X.
• The join of a space X with $S^{0}$ (the 0-dimensional sphere, or, the discrete space with two points) is called the suspension $SX$ of X.
• The join of the spheres $S^{n}$ and $S^{m}$ is the sphere $S^{n+m+1}$.

See also

• Cone (topology)
• Suspension (topology)
• Desuspension

References

• Hatcher, Allen, Algebraic topology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. xii+544 pp. ISBN 0-521-79160-X and ISBN 0-521-79540-0
• This article incorporates material from Join on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• Brown, Ronald, Topology and Groupoids Section 5.7 Joins.