Heaps and unpointed stable homotopy theory

In this paper, we show how certain ``stability phenomena'' in unpointed model categories provide the sets of homotopy classes with the structure of abelian heaps, i.e. abelian groups without a choice of a zero. In contrast with the classical situation of stable (pointed) model categories, these sets can be empty

Computing the abelian heap of unpointed stable homotopy classes of maps

summary:An algorithmic computation of the set of unpointed stable homotopy classes of equivariant fibrewise maps was described in a recent paper [4] of the author and his collaborators. In the present paper, we describe a simplification of this computation that uses an abelian heap structure on this set that was observed in another paper [5] of the author. A heap is essentially a group without a choice of its neutral element; in addition, we allow it to be empty