Spaces of Maps into Eilenberg-Maclane Spaces

In this note we provide alternative and unified proofs for two theorems on the homotopy groups of spaces of (continuous) maps into Eilenberg-MacLane spaces. The first theorem is due to Thorn, and independently Federer, and deals with spaces of maps into Eilenberg- MacLane spaces of type (π, n) for n ≧ 1 with π abelian. The second theorem is due to Gottlieb and deals with spaces of maps into Eilenberg- MacLane spaces of type (π, 1) with π nonabelian. As a main tool we shall use the homotopy sequences for certain fibrations of spaces of maps.2. Basic notation and some preliminary remarks. For any pair of connected CW-complexes X and Y with base points, we denote by M(X, Y), respectively F(X, Y), the space of free maps, respectively based maps, of X into Y.