Are homotopic maps over a cofibration homotopic relative to the cofibration?
Let $X$ be a Hausdorff space and $A$ a closed subspace. Suppose the inclusion $A \hookrightarrow X$ is a cofibration. Let $f, g: X \to Y$ be maps that agree on $A$ and which are homotopic. Are they homotopic relative to $A$?
My motivation for asking this question comes from the following result:
Let $i: A \to X, j: A \to Y$ be cofibrations. Suppose $f: X \to Y$ is a map which makes the natural triangle commutative. Suppose $f$ is a homotopy equivalence. Then $f$ is a cofiber homotopy equivalence.
On the other hand, I'm having trouble adapting the proof in Peter May's book of this to the question I asked. Nonetheless, the standard examples of pairs of maps which are homotopic but not with respect to which some subset on which they agree (say, the identity map of a comb space and its collapsing to a suitably chosen point), don't seem to involve NDR pairs.
I think the machinery of obstruction theory deals with the special case where the spaces are skeleta of a CW-complex. Here's the setup (I'm basically just copying from pp. 6-7 of Mosher & Tangora here):
Let $Y$ be simply-connected for simplicity. First, let $B$ be a complex and $A$ be a subcomplex. Let $f:A\cup B^n\rightarrow Y$. Then we get an obstruction cochain $c(f)\in C^{n+1}(B,A;\pi_n(Y))$ (i.e. a function on relative $(n+1)$-cells with values in $\pi_n(Y)$). Similarly, let $K$ be a complex; then for any two maps $f,g:K\rightarrow Y$ that agree on $K^{n-1}$, we similarly get a difference cochain $d(f,g)\in C^n(K;\pi_n(Y))$.
Here are the two results.
- Theorem: There is a map $g:A\cup B^{n+1}\rightarrow Y$ agreeing with $f$ on $A\cup B^{n-1}$ iff $[c(f)]=0 \in H^{n+1}(B,A;\pi_n(Y))$.
- Theorem: The restrictions of $f$ and $g$ to $X^n$ are homotopic rel $K^{n-1}$ iff $d(f,g)=0 \in C^n(K;\pi_n(Y))$. They are homotopic rel $K^{n-2}$ iff $[d(f,g)]=0 \in H^n(K;\pi_n(Y))$.