Dold indices and symmetric powers

Abstract

Results of Macdonald and Dold from the 1960s and '70s expressing the Lefschetz numbers of symmetric powers of a self-map of a compact ENR in terms of the Lefschetz numbers of iterates of the map are extended using the notion of a Lefschetz-polynomial functor. Configuration spaces and Borsuk-Ulam symmetric products, as well as symmetric powers, are treated as examples of the general method.