On the Ultrafilter Semigroup of an Abelian Topological Group

The ultrafilter semigroup of a topological group G, denoted Ult(G), consists of all nonprincipal ultrafilters on G converging to the identity and is a closed subsemigroup in the Stone-Cech compactification β G_d of G as a discrete semigroup. We show that for every countable nondiscrete Abelian topological group G not containing an open Boolean subgroup, the structural group of the smallest ideal of Ult(G) has cardinality 2^c.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

On the Ultrafilter Semigroup of a Topological Group

The ultrafilter semigroup Ult(G) of a topological group G consists of all nonprincipal ultrafilters on G converging to the identity and is a closed subsemigroup in the Stone-Cech compactification βG_d of G as a discrete semigroup. We show that it is consistent with ZFC that for every countable nondiscrete topological group G, Ult(G) can be partitioned into closed right ideals each of which admits a continuous homomorphism onto the Bohr compactification of the integers.     

First countability, tightness, and other cardinal invariants in remainders of topological groups

We consider the following natural questions: when a topological group G has a first countable remainder, when G has a remainder of countable tightness? This leads to some further questions on the properties of remainders of topological groups. Let G be a topological group. The following facts are established. 1. If Gω has a first countable remainder, then either G is metrizable, or G is locally compact. 2. If G has a countable network and a first countable remainder, then either G is separable and metrizable, or G is σ-compact. 3. Under (MA+¬CH) every topological group with a countable network and a first countable remainder is separable and metrizable. Some new open problems are formulated.     

Group-valued continuous functions with the topology of pointwise convergence

Let G be a topological group with the identity element e. Given a space X, we denote by Cp(X,G) the group of all continuous functions from X to G endowed with the topology of pointwise convergence, and we say that X is: (a) G-regular if, for each closed set F⊆X and every point x∈X?F, there exist f∈Cp(X,G) and g∈G?{e} such that f(x)=g and f(F)⊆{e}; (b) G^?-regular provided that there exists g∈G?{e} such that, for each closed set F⊆X and every point x∈X?F, one can find f∈Cp(X,G) with f(x)=g and f(F)⊆{e}. Spaces X and Y are G-equivalent provided that the topological groups Cp(X,G) and Cp(Y,G) are topologically isomorphic.We investigate which topological properties are preserved by G-equivalence, with a special emphasis being placed on characterizing topological properties of X in terms of those of Cp(X,G). Since R-equivalence coincides with l-equivalence, this line of research “includes” major topics of the classical Cp-theory of Arhangel'ski? as a particular case (when G=R).We introduce a new class of TAP groups that contains all groups having no small subgroups (NSS groups). We prove that: (i) for a given NSS group G, a G-regular space X is pseudocompact if and only if Cp(X,G) is TAP, and (ii) for a metrizable NSS group G, a G^?-regular space X is compact if and only if Cp(X,G) is a TAP group of countable tightness. In particular, a Tychonoff space X is pseudocompact (compact) if and only if Cp(X,R) is a TAP group (of countable tightness). Demonstrating the limits of the result in (i), we give an example of a precompact TAP group G and a G-regular countably compact space X such that Cp(X,G) is not TAP.We show that Tychonoff spaces X and Y are T-equivalent if and only if their free precompact Abelian groups are topologically isomorphic, where T stays for the quotient group R/Z. As a corollary, we obtain that T-equivalence implies G-equivalence for every Abelian precompact group G. We establish that T-equivalence preserves the following topological properties: compactness, pseudocompactness, σ-compactness, the property of being a Lindelöf Σ-space, the property of being a compact metrizable space, the (finite) number of connected components, connectedness, total disconnectedness. An example of R-equivalent (that is, l-equivalent) spaces that are not T-equivalent is constructed.     

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.     

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).

     

Domain representability of certain function spaces

Let Cp(X) be the space of all continuous real-valued functions on a space X, with the topology of pointwise convergence. In this paper we show that Cp(X) is not domain representable unless X is discrete for a class of spaces that includes all pseudo-radial spaces and all generalized ordered spaces. This is a first step toward our conjecture that if X is completely regular, then Cp(X) is domain representable if and only if X is discrete. In addition, we show that if X is completely regular and pseudonormal, then in the function space Cp(X), Oxtoby's pseudocompleteness, strong Choquet completeness, and weak Choquet completeness are all equivalent to the statement “every countable subset of X is closed”.     

Discretely weak P-sets

A discretely weak P-set is a nowhere dense closed set which is disjoint from the closure of any countable discrete subset of its complement. We show that the Stone-?ech remainder N^∗ of the discrete space N of natural numbers cannot be covered by discretely weak P-sets when the continuum hypothesis is assumed.     

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.     

A topological property enjoyed by near points but not by large points

Let H denote the halfline [0,∞). A point p?βH?H is called a near point if p is in the closure of some countable discrete closed subspace of H. In addition, a point p?βH?H is called a large point if p is not in the closure of a closed subset of H of finite Lebesgue measure. We will show that for every autohomeomorphism ? of βH?H and for each near point p we have that ?(p) is not large. In addition, we establish, under CH, the existence of a point x?βH?H such that for each autohomeomorphism ? of βH?H the point ?(x) is neither large nor near.     

Examples from trees, related to discrete subsets, pseudo-radiality and ω-boundedness

We construct some examples using trees. Some of them are consistent counterexamples for the discrete reflection of certain topological properties. All the properties dealt with here were already known to be non-discretely reflexive if we assume CH and we show that the same is true assuming the existence of a Suslin tree. In some cases we actually get some ZFC results. We construct also, using a Suslin tree, a compact space that is pseudo-radial but it is not discretely generated. With a similar construction, but using an Aronszajn tree, we present a ZFC space that is first countable, ω-bounded but is not strongly ω-bounded, answering a question of Peter Nyikos.     

Embedding paratopological groups into topological products

We show that a Hausdorff paratopological group G admits a topological embedding as a subgroup into a topological product of Hausdorff first-countable (second-countable) paratopological groups if and only if G is ω-balanced (totally ω-narrow) and the Hausdorff number of G is countable, i.e., for every neighbourhood U of the neutral element e of G there exists a countable family γ of neighbourhoods of e such that _?V∈γVV−1⊆U. Similarly, we prove that a regular paratopological group G can be topologically embedded as a subgroup into a topological product of regular first-countable (second-countable) paratopological groups if and only if G is ω-balanced (totally ω-narrow) and the index of regularity of G is countable.As a by-product, we show that a regular totally ω-narrow paratopological group with countable index of regularity is Tychonoff.     

Sixteen topological types in βω−ω

In this paper we describe sixteen topological types in βω?ω. Among others, we show that there is a weak P-point x ∈ βω?ω which is a limit point of some ccc subset of βω?ω?{x} and that there is a point y ∈ βω?ω which is a limit point of some countable subset of βω?ω?{y} but not of any countable discrete subset of βω?ω?{y}.     

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.     

Fréchet-Urysohn fans in free topological groups

In this paper we answer the question of T. Banakh and M. Zarichnyi constructing a copy of the Fréchet-Urysohn fan S_ω in a topological group G admitting a functorial embedding [0,1]⊂G. The latter means that each autohomeomorphism of [0,1] extends to a continuous homomorphism of G. This implies that many natural free topological group constructions (e.g. the constructions of the Markov free topological group, free abelian topological group, free totally bounded group, free compact group) applied to a Tychonov space X containing a topological copy of the space Q of rationals give topological groups containing S_ω.     

Zero-dimensional proximities and zero-dimensional compactifications

We introduce zero-dimensional proximities and show that the poset 〈Z(X),?〉 of inequivalent zero-dimensional compactifications of a zero-dimensional Hausdorff space X is isomorphic to the poset 〈Π(X),?〉 of zero-dimensional proximities on X that induce the topology on X. This solves a problem posed by Leo Esakia. We also show that 〈Π(X),?〉 is isomorphic to the poset 〈B(X),⊆〉 of Boolean bases of X, and derive Dwinger's theorem that 〈Z(X),?〉 is isomorphic to 〈B(X),⊆〉 as a corollary. As another corollary, we obtain that for a regular extremally disconnected space X, the Stone-?ech compactification of X is a unique up to equivalence extremally disconnected compactification of X.