The behavior on fundamental group of a free pro-homotopy equivalence

We study the question: given a morphism $\text{?{(X}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{, x}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{)}→{(Y}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{, y}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>n</mtext>}}\text{)}}$ in the category pro-(Poi nted. Homotopy) where the domain and range are inverse sequences of well-pointed CW complexes, and given that ? induces an isomorphism {X_n}→{Y_n} in pro-(Homotopy), what additional hypotheses force ? to be an isomorphism in pro-(Pointed Homotopy)? Conjecture. If the dimensions of the Y_n's are bounded, then ? is an isomorphism in pro-(Pointed Homotopy). We first prove the special case of this conjecture in which dim Y_n?d<∞ for all n, and $\text{lim}\text{{H}{}_{\mathrm{d}}\text{Y}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{}≠0}$, Y_n being the universal cover of Y_n. Then we deal with the general case: we show that there are certain elements of each π₁Y_n with the properties: (i) these elements commute if and only if ? is an isomorphism in pro-(Pointed Homotopy); (ii) if dim Y_n?d<∞ for all n, then powers of these elements commute. While (i) and (ii) are not incompatible, this result puts severe restrictions on the nature of any possible counter-example to the conjecture.Our method also gives pro-homotopy analogues of the well-known fact that if a K(π, 1) is N-dimensional, then π is torsion-free and contains no abelian subgroup of rank>N. The latter theorems apply to inverse sequences {Y_n} of CW complexes where dim Y_n is finite but not necessarily bounded, hence in particular to infinite-dimensional shape-aspherical compacta.