Fundamental group preserves products
Let
which is given by
That is, the fundamental group of a Product topology is isomorphic to the direct product of fundamental groups. homotopy
Proof
From the universal property of the product
is a unique homomorphism. Let Ξ¦ be a a loop in πΌ with base π . If π₯ then there exist homotopies Ξ¦ [ πΌ ] = ( π , π ) and π» 1 : π 1 πΌ β π π₯ 1 . Thus π» 2 : π 2 πΌ β π π₯ 2 by the homotopy πΌ β π π₯ π» ( π , π‘ ) = ( π» 1 ( π , π‘ ) , π» 2 ( π , π‘ ) ) and hence
, hence [ πΌ ] = π and thus k e r β‘ Ξ¦ = { π } is injective. Now let Ξ¦ be a loop in πΌ π with base π π for π₯ π . Then the following is a loop in π = 1 , 2 with base π π₯ πΌ : π β¦ ( πΌ 1 ( π ) , πΌ 2 ( π ) ) and
. Hence Ξ¦ [ πΌ ] = ( [ π 1 πΌ ] , [ π 2 πΌ ] ) = ( [ πΌ 1 ] , [ πΌ 2 ] ) is surjective. Ξ¦