Almost coreflective and projective classes

This paper summarizes the situation around the problem of when classes of projective objects are almost coreflective, both in general categories and in Top or similar categories. In addition to known results, several new contributions and examples are added.For the sixtieth birthday of D. PumplünThe paper was written while the second author was visiting the University of Toledo, Ohio.     

Cartesian-closed coreflective subcategories of uniform spaces generated by classes of metric spaces

The main result, in Theorem 3, is that in the category Unif of Hausdorff uniform spaces and uniformly continuous maps, the coreflective hulls of the following classes are cartesian-closed: all metric spaces having no infinite uniform partition, all connected metric spaces, all bounded metric spaces, and all injective metric spaces.Furthermore, Theorems 1 and 4 imply that if $\text{C}$ is any coreflective, cartesian-closed subcategory of Unif in which enough function space structures are finer than the uniformity of uniform convergence (as in the above examples), then either (1) $\text{C}$ is a subclass of the locally fine spaces, or (2) $\text{C}$ contains all injective metric spaces and $\text{C}$ is a subclass of the coreflective hull of all uniform spaces having no infinite uniform partition.     

On the largest coreflective Cartesian closed subconstruct of Prtop

We show that the subconstruct Fing of Prtop, consisting of all finitely generated pretopological spaces, is the largest Cartesian closed coreflective subconstruct of Prtop. This implies that in any coreflective subconstruct of Prtop, exponential objects are finitely generated. Moreover, in any finitely productive, coreflective subconstruct, exponential objects are precisely those objects of the subconstruct that are finitely generated. We give a counterexample showing that without finite productivity the previous result does not hold.     

Are there convenient subcategories of Top?

The category Top has several pleasant properties but fails to have other desirable ones. Consequently there have been various attempts to replace Top by more convenient categories; mostly subcategories or supercategories of Top. Whereas several of the supercategories of Top have extremely pleasant properties, all the subcategories of Top investigated so far have some deficiencies. In the present article it is shown why this is so and why the search for more convenient subcategories of Top has to be in vain. As a preparation in Section 1 nine convenience-properties for topological categories are defined and their mutual relations are analyzed. In Section 2 it is shown that every topological subcategory of Top (under some minor, natural assumptions) it-with respect to each of the 9 mentioned properties-as convenient or inconvenient as Top itself.     

Simultaneously reflective and coreflective full subconstructs of stratified L-topological spaces are concretely reflective and coreflective

Let L be a completely distributive lattice. A stratified L-topology on a set X is a subfamily of L-subsets of X which is closed with respect to arbitrary suprema and finite infinima, and contains all the constants. In this paper, it is shown that every simultaneously reflective and coreflective full subconstruct of stratified L-topological spaces is necessarily concretely reflective and coreflective. In other words, every such subconstruct is necessarily both initially and finally closed. As an application, it is demonstrated that the construct of bitopological spaces has exactly 4 simultaneously reflective and coreflective full subconstructs.     

On selections and classes of spaces

Strong paracompactness, Lindelöf number and degree of compactness are characterized in terms of selections of set-valued mappings.     

Properties that are productive,closed-hereditary and surjective

We obtain a characterization of all those topological properties of regular Hausdorff spaces, that are preserved under the formation of arbitrary products, closed subspaces and continuous surjections.     

Asymmetry and bicompletion of approach spaces

We develop a bicompletion theory for the category Ap₀ of T₀ approach spaces in the sense of Lowen [R. Lowen, Approach Spaces: The Missing Link in the Topology-Uniformity-Metric Triad, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997], which extends the completion theory obtained in [R. Lowen, K. Robeys., Completions of products of metric spaces, Quart. J. Math. Oxford 43 (1991) 319-338] for the subcategory of Hausdorff uniform approach spaces. Moreover, we prove it to be firmly epireflective (in the sense of [G.C.L. Brümmer, E. Giuli, A categorical concept of completion of objects, Comment. Math. Univ. Carolin. 33 (1992) 131-147]) with respect to a certain morphism class of dense embeddings.     

Topological sums and products in ZF-set theory

In ZF, i.e., Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice, the category Top of topological spaces and continuous maps is well-behaved. In particular, Top has sums (=coproducts) and products. However, it may happen that for families (Xi)_i∈I and (Yi)_i∈I with the property that each Xi is homeomorphic to the corresponding Yi neither their sums _⊕i∈IXi and _⊕i∈IYi nor their products _∏i∈IXi and _∏i∈IYi are homeomorphic. It will be shown that the axiom of choice is not only sufficient but also necessary to rectify this defect.     

A note on the categorical van Kampen Theorem

In this note we show that for the canonical map X₁+X₂→X, from the topological sum of two subspaces X₁, X₂ of X into X, to be of effective descent it is sufficient to be hereditarily a quotient map. Further, making use of the Brown-Janelidze categorical van Kampen Theorem, this translates into a van Kampen-type result.     

On categorical notions of compact objects

Due to the nature of compactness, there are several interesting ways of defining compact objects in a category. In this paper we introduce and study an internal notion of compact objects relative to a closure operator (following the Borel-Lebesgue definition of compact spaces) and a notion of compact objects with respect to a class of morphisms (following Áhn and Wiegandt [2]). Although these concepts seem very different in essence, we show that, in convenient settings, compactness with respect to a class of morphisms can be viewed as Borel-Lebesgue compactness for a suitable closure operator. Finally, we use the results obtained to study compact objects relative to a class of morphisms in some special settings.Partial financial assistance by Centro de Matemática da Universidade de Coimbra and by a NATO Collaborative Grant (CRG 940847) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Essential extensions of Hausdorff spaces

In the category Haus of Hausdorff spaces the only injectives are the one-point spaces. Even though every Hausdorff spaceX has a maximal essential extension,X fails to have an injective hull, providedX has more than one point. A non-empty Hausdorff space has a proper essential extension if and only ifX is locally H-closed but not H-closed. In this case,X has (up to isomorphism) precisely one proper essential extension: the Obreanu-Porter extension (being simultaneously its maximal essential extension and its minimal H-closed extension). Completely parallel results hold for the categories SReg, Reg, and Tych of semi-regular, regular, and completely regular spaces respectively. In particular, the Alexandroff compactifications of locally compact, non-compact Hausdorff spaces are characterized categorically as the proper essential extensions of non-empty spaces in Tych (resp. Reg).Dedicated to my friend Nico Pumplün on his sixtieth birthday     

Zariski closure, completeness and compactness

The categorical theory of closure operators is used to introduce and study separated, complete and compact objects with respect to the Zariski closure operator naturally defined in any category X(A,Ω) obtained by a given complete category X (endowed with a proper factorization structure for morphisms) and by a given X-algebra (A,Ω) by forming the affine X-objects modelled by (A,Ω). Several basic examples are provided.     

DISCONNECTEDNESS

Abstract

There are three different ways to characterize To-spaces in the category of topological spaces. All three methods are canonical, i.e. they can be easily formulated in a general setting, where they, in general, do not coincide. In the following, the characterization of T₀-spaces by indiscrete spaces is generalized to an abstract category and investigated.     

An elementary approach to ‘Algebra ∩ topology = compactness’

Herrlich and Strecker characterized the category Comp ₂ of compact Hausdorff spaces as the only nontrivial full epireflective subcategory in the category Top ₂ of all Hausdorff spaces that is concretely isomorphic to a variety in the sense of universal algebra including infinitary operations. The original proof of this result requires Noble's theorem, i.e. a space is compact Hausdorff iff every of its powers is normal, which is far from being elementary. Likewise, Petz' characterization of the class of compact Hausdorff spaces as the only nontrivial epireflective subcategory of Top ₂, which is closed under dense extensions (= epimorphisms in Top ₂) and strictly contained in Top ₂ is based on a result by Kattov stating that a space is compact Hausdorff iff its every closed subspace is H-closed. This note offers an elementary approach for both, instead.Presented at the European Colloquium of Category Theory, Tours, France, 25–31 July 1994.     

Interior operators and topological separation

A notion of separation with respect to an interior operator in topology is introduced and some basic properties are presented. In particular, it is shown that this notion of separation with respect to an interior operator gives rise to a Galois connection between the collection of all subclasses of the class of topological spaces and the collection of all interior operators in topology. Characterizations of the fixed points of this Galois connection are given and examples are provided.     

Pointwise bornological spaces

With each metric space (X,d) we can associate a bornological space (X,Bd) where Bd is the set of all subsets of X with finite diameter. Equivalently, Bd is the set of all subsets of X that are contained in a ball with finite radius. If the metric d can attain the value infinite, then the set of all subsets with finite diameter is no longer a bornology. Moreover, if d is no longer symmetric, then the set of subsets with finite diameter does not coincide with the set of subsets that are contained in a ball with finite radius. In this text we will introduce two structures that capture the concept of boundedness in both symmetric and non-symmetric extended metric spaces.