The aim of this work is to represent the elements of the homotopy classes of maps from S2 to S2 ∨ S1 by maps with some minimality root properties.

Let E → B be a fibre bundle and let Eʹ → B be a vector bundle. Let G be a compact Lie group acting fibre preservingly and freely on both E and Eʹ – 0, where 0 is the zero section of Eʹ → B. Let f : E → Eʹ be a fibre-preserving G-equivariant map and let Zf = {x ∈ E | f(x) = 0} be the zero set of f. In this paper we give a lower bound for the cohomological dimension of the zero set Zf when a fibre of E → B is a real Stiefel manifold with a free ℤ/2-action or a complex Stiefel manifold with a free 𝕊1-action. This generalizes a well-known result of Dold for sphere bundles equipped with free involutions.

When can two fibrewise maps be deformed in a fibrewise fashion until they are coincidence free? In order to get a thorough understanding of this problem (and, more generally, of minimum numbers that are closely related to it) we study the strength of natural geometric obstructions, such as ω-invariants and Nielsen numbers, as well as the related Nielsen theory.

In the setting of sphere bundles, a certain degree map degB turns out to play a decisive role. In many explicit cases it also yields good descriptions of the set ℱ of fibrewise homotopy classes of fibrewise maps. We introduce an addition on ℱ, which is not always single valued but still very helpful. Furthermore, normal bordism Gysin sequences and (iterated) Freudenthal suspensions play a crucial role.

Bo Ju Jiang introduced an invariant lying in the braid group which is the best lower bound of the number of fixed points in a homotopy class of a given pair of self maps of a surface. Here we modify this construction to get a lower bound of the number of coincidence points of a pair of maps between two closed surfaces.

A theorem by H. Robbins shows that every closed and non-empty subset of the unit ball Bn in Euclidean n-space is the fixed point set of a self map of Bn. This result is extended to coincidence producing maps of Bn, where a map ƒ:X → Y is coincidence producing (or universal) if it has a coincidence with every map g:X → Y. The main result implies that if ƒ:Bn, Sn - 1 → Bn, Sn - 1 is coincidence producing and A⊂Bn closed and nonempty, then there exist a map ƒ': Bn, Sn - 1 → Bn, Sn - 1 and a map g: Bn → Bn such that ƒ' | Sn - 1 is homotopic to ƒ | Sn-1 and A is the coincidence set of ƒ' and g.