Realizing additive monoids as mapping degree sets

Abstract

We prove that mapping degree sets are stable under multiplication by finite subsets of $\mathbb{Z}$ containing $0$ and by sets obtained from additive submonoids of $\mathbb{Z}$ through finitely many sums and products. In particular, every set of the latter type occurs as a mapping degree set. As a consequence, we obtain a broad family of infinite mapping degree sets, including finite unions of arithmetic progressions starting at $0$. These results extend previous work on the realization problem and are related to a question posed by Neofytidis, Wang, and Wang.

15 pages, no figures