On subgroups of minimal topological groups

A topological group is minimal if it does not admit a strictly coarser Hausdorff group topology. The Roelcke uniformity (or lower uniformity) on a topological group is the greatest lower bound of the left and right uniformities. A group is Roelcke-precompact if it is precompact with respect to the Roelcke uniformity. Many naturally arising non-Abelian topological groups are Roelcke-precompact and hence have a natural compactification. We use such compactifications to prove that some groups of isometries are minimal. In particular, if U₁ is the Urysohn universal metric space of diameter 1, the group Iso(U₁) of all self-isometries of U₁ is Roelcke-precompact, topologically simple and minimal. We also show that every topological group is a subgroup of a minimal topologically simple Roelcke-precompact group of the form Iso(M), where M is an appropriate non-separable version of the Urysohn space.     

On extremally disconnected topological groups

We introduce the notion of a partially selective ultrafilter and prove that (a) if G is an extremally disconnected topological group and p is a converging nonprincipal ultrafilter on G containing a countable discrete subset, then p is partially selective, and (b) the existence of a nonprincipal partially selective ultrafilter on a countable set implies the existence of a P-point in ω^∗. Thus it is consistent with ZFC that there is no extremally disconnected topological group containing a countable discrete nonclosed subset.     

Even continuity and topological equicontinuity in topologized semigroups

A topologized semigroup X having an evenly continuous resp., topologically equicontinuous, family RX of right translations is investigated. It is shown that: (1) every left semitopological semigroup X with an evenly continuous family RX is a topological semigroup, (2) a semitopological group X is a paratopological group if and only if the family RX is evenly continuous and (3) a semitopological group X is a topological group if and only if the family RX is topologically equicontinuous. In particular, we get that for any paratopological group X which is not a topological group, the family RX provides an example of a transitive group of homeomorphisms of X that is evenly continuous and not topologically equicontinuous. The last conclusion answers negatively a question posed by H.L. Royden.     

An asymmetric Ellis theorem

In 1957 Robert Ellis proved that a group with a locally compact Hausdorff topology T making all translations continuous also has jointly continuous multiplication and continuous inversion, and is thus a topological group. The theorem does not apply to locally compact asymmetric spaces such as the reals with addition and the topology of upper open rays. We first show a bitopological Ellis theorem, and then introduce a generalization of locally compact Hausdorff, called locally skew compact, and a topological dual, Tk, to obtain the following asymmetric Ellis theorem which applies to the example above:Whenever (X,⋅,T) is a group with a locally skew compact topology making all translations continuous, then multiplication is jointly continuous in both (X,⋅,T) and (X,⋅,Tk), and inversion is a homeomorphism between (X,T) and (X,Tk).This generalizes the classical Ellis theorem, because T=Tk when (X,T) is locally compact Hausdorff.     

CLP-compactness for topological spaces and groups

We study CLP-compact spaces (every cover consisting of clopen sets has a finite subcover) and CLP-compact topological groups. In particular, we extend a theorem on CLP-compactness of products from [J. Steprāns, A. Šostak, Restricted compactness properties and their preservation under products, Topology Appl. 101 (3) (2000) 213-229] and we offer various criteria for CLP-compactness for spaces and topological groups, that work particularly well for precompact groups. This allows us to show that arbitrary products of CLP-compact pseudocompact groups are CLP-compact. For every natural n we construct:

(i)

a totally disconnected, n-dimensional, pseudocompact CLP-compact group; and

(ii)

a hereditarily disconnected, n-dimensional, totally minimal, CLP-compact group that can be chosen to be either separable metrizable or pseudocompact (a Hausdorff group G is totally minimal when all continuous surjective homomorphisms G→H, with a Hausdorff group H, are open).

     

Bounded sets in topological groups and embeddings

We show that the existence of a non-metrizable compact subspace of a topological group G often implies that G contains an uncountable supersequence (a copy of the one-point compactification of an uncountable discrete space). The existence of uncountable supersequences in a topological group has a strong impact on bounded subsets of the group. For example, if a topological group G contains an uncountable supersequence and K is a closed bounded subset of G which does not contain uncountable supersequences, then any subset A of K is bounded in G?(K?A). We also show that every precompact Abelian topological group H can be embedded as a closed subgroup into a precompact Abelian topological group G such that H is bounded in G and all bounded subsets of the quotient group G/H are finite. This complements Ursul's result on closed embeddings of precompact groups to pseudocompact groups.     

Self-duality in the class of precompact groups

A topological Abelian group G is called (strongly) self-dual if there exists a topological isomorphism Φ:G→G^∧ of G onto the dual group G^∧ (such that Φ(x)(y)=Φ(y)(x) for all x,y∈G). We prove that every countably compact self-dual Abelian group is finite. It turns out, however, that for every infinite cardinal κ with κω=κ, there exists a pseudocompact, non-compact, strongly self-dual Boolean group of cardinality κ.     

Building suitable sets for locally compact groups by means of continuous selections

If a discrete subset S of a topological group G with the identity 1 generates a dense subgroup of G and S∪{1} is closed in G, then S is called a suitable set for G. We apply Michael's selection theorem to offer a direct, self-contained, purely topological proof of the result of Hofmann and Morris [K.-H. Hofmann, S.A. Morris, Weight and c, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 68 (1-2) (1990) 181-194] on the existence of suitable sets in locally compact groups. Our approach uses only elementary facts from (topological) group theory.     

The β-space property in monotonically normal spaces and GO-spaces

In this paper we examine the role of the β-space property (equivalently of the MCM-property) in generalized ordered (GO-)spaces and, more generally, in monotonically normal spaces. We show that a GO-space is metrizable iff it is a β-space with a Gδ-diagonal and iff it is a quasi-developable β-space. That last assertion is a corollary of a general theorem that any β-space with a σ-point-finite base must be developable. We use a theorem of Balogh and Rudin to show that any monotonically normal space that is hereditarily monotonically countably metacompact (equivalently, hereditarily a β-space) must be hereditarily paracompact, and that any generalized ordered space that is perfect and hereditarily a β-space must be metrizable. We include an appendix on non-Archimedean spaces in which we prove various results announced without proof by Nyikos.     

On some questions about KC and related spaces

Answering questions raised by O.T. Alas and R.G. Wilson, or by these two authors together with M.G. Tkachenko and V.V. Tkachuk, we show that every minimal SC space must be sequentially compact, and we produce the following examples:

-

a KC space which cannot be embedded in any compact KC space;

-

a countable KC space which does not admit any coarser compact KC topology;

-

a minimal Hausdorff space which is not a k-space.

We also give an example of a compact KC space such that every nonempty open subset of it is dense, even if, as pointed out to us by the referee, a completely different construction carried out by E.K. van Douwen in 1993 leads to a space with the same properties.     

The prime dicompletion of a di-uniformity on a plain texture

Working within a plain texture (S,S), the authors construct a completion of a dicovering uniformity υ on (S,S) in terms of prime S-filters. In case υ is separated, a separated completion is then obtained using the T₀-quotient, and it is shown that this construction produces a reflector. For a totally bounded di-uniformity it is verified that these constructions lead to dicompactifications of the uniform ditopology. A condition is given under which complementation is preserved on passing to these completions, and an example on the real texture (R,R,ρ) is presented.     

Continuity in topological groups

We prove that, when G is a group equipped with a Baire and metrizable topology, if there is a second category dense subset S of G such that the right translations ρs and ρs⁻¹ are continuous for all s∈S and each left translation λs, s∈G, is almost-continuous (defined below) on a residual subset of G, then G is a topological group. Among other consequences, this yields that when G is a second countable locally compact right topological group, its topological centre is a topological group.     

Counting maximal topologies on countable groups and rings

Two non-discrete Hausdorff group topologies τ₁, τ₂ on a group G are called transversal if the least upper bound τ₁∨τ₂ of τ₁ and τ₂ is the discrete topology. We show that a countable group G admitting non-discrete Hausdorff group topologies admits c² pairwise transversal complete group topologies on G (so c² maximal group topologies). Moreover, every abelian group G admits ²|G|² pairwise transversal complete group topologies.     

Remainders in compactifications of topological groups

In this paper, we consider the following question: when does a topological group G have a Hausdorff compactification bG with a remainder belonging to a given class of spaces? We extend the results of A.V. Arhangel'skii by showing that if a remainder of a non-locally compact topological group G has a countable open point-network or a locally Gδ-diagonal, then G and the compactification bG of G are separable and metrizable.     

More on remainders close to metrizable spaces

This article is a natural continuation of [A.V. Arhangel'skii, Remainders in compactifications and generalized metrizability properties, Topology Appl. 150 (2005) 79-90]. As in [A.V. Arhangel'skii, Remainders in compactifications and generalized metrizability properties, Topology Appl. 150 (2005) 79-90], we consider the following general question: when does a Tychonoff space X have a Hausdorff compactification with a remainder belonging to a given class of spaces? A famous classical result in this direction is the well known theorem of M. Henriksen and J. Isbell [M. Henriksen, J.R. Isbell, Some properties of compactifications, Duke Math. J. 25 (1958) 83-106].It is shown that if a non-locally compact topological group G has a compactification bG such that the remainder Y=bG?G has a Gδ-diagonal, then both G and Y are separable and metrizable spaces (Theorem 5). Several corollaries are derived from this result, in particular, this one: If a compact Hausdorff space X is first countable at least at one point, and X can be represented as the union of two complementary dense subspaces Y and Z, each of which is homeomorphic to a topological group (not necessarily the same), then X is separable and metrizable (Theorem 12). It is observed that Theorem 5 does not extend to arbitrary paratopological groups. We also establish that if a topological group G has a remainder with a point-countable base, then either G is locally compact, or G is separable and metrizable.     

Almost maximal spaces

A topological space X is called almost maximal if it is without isolated points and for every x∈X, there are only finitely many ultrafilters on X converging to x. We associate with every countable regular homogeneous almost maximal space X a finite semigroup Ult(X) so that if X and Y are homeomorphic, Ult(X) and Ult(Y) are isomorphic. Semigroups Ult(X) are projectives in the category F of finite semigroups. These are bands decomposing into a certain chain of rectangular components. Under MA, for each projective S in F, there is a countable almost maximal topological group G with Ult(G) isomorphic to S. The existence of a countable almost maximal topological group cannot be established in ZFC. However, there are in ZFC countable regular homogeneous almost maximal spaces X with Ult(X) being a chain of idempotents.     

Subsequential filters

Following N. Noble, we say that a space is subsequential if it is a subspace of a sequential space. A free filter F on ω is called subsequential if the space ω∪{F} is subsequential. In this paper, we state several properties of these filters.     

Topologies on groups determined by discrete subsets

Let G be an infinite group. Given a filter F on G, let T[F] denote the largest left invariant topology on G in which F converges to the identity. In this paper, we study the topology T[F] in case when F contains the Fréchet filter and there is such that all the subsets xM(x), where x∈G, are pairwise disjoint. We show that T[F] possesses interesting extremal properties. We consider also the question whether T[F] can be a group topology.     

On D-Paracompact spaces

Following Pareek a topological space X is called D-paracompact if for every open cover $\text{A}$ of X there exists a continuous mapping f from X onto a developable T₁-space Y and an open cover $\text{B}$ of Y such that { f^-1[B]|B ∈ $\text{B}$ } refines $\text{A}$. It is shown that a space is D-paracompact if and only if it is subparacompact and D-expandable. Moreover, it is proved that D-paracompactness coincides with a covering property, called dissectability, which was introduced by the author in order to obtain a base characterization of developable spaces.