The topology of a semisimple Lie group is essentially unique

We study locally compact group topologies on simple and semisimple Lie groups. We show that the Lie group topology on such a group S is very rigid: every “abstract” isomorphism between S and a locally compact and σ-compact group Γ is automatically a homeomorphism, provided that S is absolutely simple. If S is complex, then noncontinuous field automorphisms of the complex numbers have to be considered, but that is all. We obtain similar results for semisimple groups.