The enriched Vietoris monad on representable spaces

Employing a formal analogy between ordered sets and topological spaces, over the past years we have investigated a notion of cocompleteness for topological, approach and other kind of spaces. In this new context, the down-set monad becomes the filter monad, cocomplete ordered set translates to continuous lattice, distributivity means disconnectedness, and so on. Curiously, the dual(?) notion of completeness does not behave as the mirror image of the one of cocompleteness; and in this paper we have a closer look at complete spaces. In particular, we construct the “up-set monad” on representable spaces (in the sense of L. Nachbin for topological spaces, respectively C. Hermida for multicategories); we show that this monad is of Kock–Zöberlein type; we introduce and study a notion of weighted limit similar to the classical notion for enriched categories; and we describe the Kleisli category of our “up-set monad”. We emphasise that these generic categorical notions and results can be indeed connected to more “classical” topology: for topological spaces, the “up-set monad” becomes the lower Vietoris monad, and the statement “X   is totally cocomplete if and only if X^op$X^{\mathrm{op}}$ is totally complete” specialises to O. Wyler's characterisation of the algebras of the Vietoris monad on compact Hausdorff spaces as precisely the continuous lattices.     

On the space of subgroups of a compact group I

A theory of the family of closed subgroups of a compact topological group is developed, using the topological notion of a hyperspace. Basic properties of this “space of subgroups” are explored.     

On asymptotic behavior of solutions to Korteweg-de Vries type equations related to vortex filament with axial flow

We study the global existence and asymptotic behavior in time of solutions to the Korteweg-de Vries type equation called as “Hirota” equation. This equation is a mixture of cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation and modified Korteweg-de Vries equation. We show the unique existence of the solution for this equation which tends to the given “modified” free profile by using the two asymptotic formulae for some oscillatory integrals.     

Towards Stone duality for topological theories

In the context of categorical topology, more precisely that of T-categories (Hofmann, 2007 [8]), we define the notion of T-colimit as a particular colimit in a V-category. A complete and cocomplete V-category in which limits distribute over T-colimits, is to be thought of as the generalisation of a (co-)frame to this categorical level. We explain some ideas on a T-categorical version of “Stone duality”, and show that Cauchy completeness of a T-category is precisely its sobriety.     

Asymptotically liberating sequences of random unitary matrices

A fundamental result of free probability theory due to Voiculescu and subsequently refined by many authors states that conjugation by independent Haar-distributed random unitary matrices delivers asymptotic freeness. In this paper we exhibit many other systems of random unitary matrices that, when used for conjugation, lead to freeness. We do so by first proving a general result asserting “asymptotic liberation” under quite mild conditions, and then we explain how to specialize these general results in a striking way by exploiting Hadamard matrices. In particular, we recover and generalize results of the second-named author and of Tulino, Caire, Shamai and Verdú.     

Some recollections on early work with Jan Pelant

In this note we consider three questions which can be traced to our early collaboration with Jan “Honza” Pelant. We present them from the contemporary perspective, in some cases extending our earlier work. The questions relate to Ramsey theory, uniform spaces and tournaments.     

Lindelöf spaces which are Menger, Hurewicz, Alster, productive, or D

We discuss relationships in Lindelöf spaces among the properties “Menger”, “Hurewicz”, “Alster”, “productive”, and “D”.     

A generalisation of the functional approach to compactness

A topological space X is compact iff the projection π:X×Y→Y is closed for any space Y. Taking this as a definition and then asking that π maps α-closed subspaces of X×Y onto β-closed subspaces of Y, for different closures α and β, extends the notion of compactness to include also examples of “asymmetric compactness” pursued in the article.Categorical closure operators and a so-called “functional approach to general topology” are employed to define and prove fundamental properties of compact objects and proper maps in this generalised setting.     

Fundamental results for pointfree convex geometry

Inspired by locale theory, we propose “pointfree convex geometry”. We introduce the notion of convexity algebra as a pointfree convexity space. There are two notions of a point for convexity algebra: one is a chain-prime meet-complete filter and the other is a maximal meet-complete filter. In this paper we show the following: (1) the former notion of a point induces a dual equivalence between the category of “spatial” convexity algebras and the category of “sober” convexity spaces as well as a dual adjunction between the category of convexity algebras and the category of convexity spaces; (2) the latter notion of point induces a dual equivalence between the category of “m-spatial” convexity algebras and the category of “m-sober” convexity spaces. We finally argue that the former notion of a point is more useful than the latter one from a category theoretic point of view and that the former notion of a point actually represents a polytope (or generic point) and the latter notion of a point properly represents a point. We also remark on the close relationships between pointfree convex geometry and domain theory.     

Countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn bunches of arcs in the plane

In this paper, we answer a question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski by constructing countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn spaces as quotient spaces of bunches of arcs in the plane. We also consider a generalization of graphs by allowing vertices to be continua and replacing edges by not necessarily connected sets. We require only that two “vertices” be in the same quasi-component of the “edge” that contains them. We observe that if a graph G cannot be embedded in the plane, then any generalized graph modeled on G is not embeddable in the plane. As a corollary we obtain not planar bunches of arcs with their natural quotients Hausdorff or Urysohn. This answers another question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski.     

Reflections on function spaces

This paper gathers together a number of loosely connected thoughts about Bishop’s notion of “function space”. In particular, it provides constructive proofs of some natural, classically straightforward results about morphisms between metrical function spaces, and examines connections between function spaces and pre-apartness spaces.     

Lindelöf spaces which are indestructible, productive, or D

We discuss relationships in Lindelöf spaces among the properties “indestructible”, “productive”, “D”, and related properties.     

Pullback permanence in a non-autonomous competitive Lotka-Volterra model

The goal of this work is to study in some detail the asymptotic behaviour of a non-autonomous Lotka-Volterra model, both in the conventional sense (as t→∞) and in the “pullback” sense (starting a fixed initial condition further and further back in time). The non-autonomous terms in our model are chosen such that one species will eventually die out, ruling out any conventional type of permanence. In contrast, we introduce the notion of “pullback permanence” and show that this property is enjoyed by our model. This is not just a mathematical artifice, but rather shows that if we come across an ecology that has been evolving for a very long time we still expect that both species are represented (and their numbers are bounded below), even if the final fate of one of them is less happy. The main tools in the paper are the theory of attractors for non-autonomous differential equations, the sub-supersolution method and the spectral theory for linear elliptic equations.     

Propagation and its failure in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction

We study the existence, uniqueness, global asymptotic stability and propagation failure of traveling wave fronts in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction for a single species population with two age classes and a fixed maturation period living in a spatially unbounded environment. In the bistable case, under realistic assumptions on the birth function, we prove that the equation admits a strictly monotone increasing traveling wave front. Moreover, if the wave speed does not vanish, then the wave front is unique (up to a translation) and globally asymptotic stable with phase shift. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of “propagation failure” or “pinning” (that is, wave speed c = 0), we also give some criteria for pinning in this paper.     

Bornologies and metrically generated theories

Bornologies axiomatize an abstract notion of bounded sets and are introduced as collections of subsets satisfying a number of consistency properties. Bornological spaces form a topological construct, the morphisms of which are those functions which preserve bounded sets. A typical example is a bornology generated by a metric, i.e. the collection of all bounded sets for that metric. In a recent paper [E. Colebunders, R. Lowen, Metrically generated theories, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 133 (2005) 1547-1556] the authors noted that many examples are known of natural functors describing the transition from categories of metric spaces to the “metrizable” objects in some given topological construct such that, in some natural way, the metrizable objects generate the whole construct. These constructs can be axiomatically described and are called metrically generated. The construct of bornological spaces is not metrically generated, but an important large subconstruct is. We also encounter other important examples of metrically generated constructs, the constructs of Lipschitz spaces, of uniform spaces and of completely regular spaces. In this paper, the unified setting of metrically generated theories is used to study the functorial relationship between these constructs and the one of bornological spaces.     

Quotient-reflective and bireflective subcategories of the category of preordered sets

In previous papers, the notions of “closedness” and “strong closedness” in set-based topological categories were introduced. In this paper, we give the characterization of closed and strongly closed subobjects of an object in the category Prord of preordered sets and show that they form appropriate closure operators which enjoy the basic properties like idempotency (weak) hereditariness, and productivity.We investigate the relationships between these closure operators and the well-known ones, the up- and down-closures. As a consequence, we characterize each of T₀, T₁, and T₂ preordered sets and show that each of the full subcategories of each of T₀, T₁, T₂ preordered sets is quotient-reflective in Prord. Furthermore, we give the characterization of each of pre-Hausdorff preordered sets and zero-dimensional preordered sets, and show that there is an isomorphism of the full subcategory of zero-dimensional preordered sets and the full subcategory of pre-Hausdorff preordered sets. Finally, we show that both of these subcategories are bireflective in Prord.     

The logic of justified belief,explicit knowledge,and conclusive evidence

We present a complete, decidable logic for reasoning about a notion of completely trustworthy (“conclusive”) evidence and its relations to justifiable (implicit) belief and knowledge, as well as to their explicit justifications. This logic makes use of a number of evidence-related notions such as availability, admissibility, and “goodness” of a piece of evidence, and is based on an innovative modification of the Fitting semantics for Artemov?s Justification Logic designed to preempt Gettier-type counterexamples. We combine this with ideas from belief revision and awareness logics to provide an account for explicitly justified (defeasible) knowledge based on conclusive evidence that addresses the problem of (logical) omniscience.     

Topological multiple recurrence for polynomial configurations in nilpotent groups

We establish a general multiple recurrence theorem for an action of a nilpotent group by homeomorphisms of a compact space. This theorem can be viewed as a nilpotent version of our recent polynomial Hales-Jewett theorem (Ann. Math. 150 (1999) 33) and contains nilpotent extensions of many known “abelian” results as special cases.     

How strange can an attractor for a dynamical system in a 3-manifold look?

The aim of this paper is to characterise those compact subsets K of 3-manifolds M that are (stable and not necessarily global) attractors for some flow on M. We will show that it is the topology of M−K, rather than that of K, the one that plays a relevant role in this problem.A necessary and sufficient condition for a set K to be an attractor is that it must be an “almost tame” subset of M in a sense made precise under the equivalent notions of “weakly tame” and “tamely embedded up to shape”, defined in the paper. These are complemented by a further equivalent condition, “algebraic tameness”, which has the advantage of being checkable by explicit computation.A final section of the paper is devoted to a partial analysis of the same question when one replaces flows by discrete dynamical systems.     

Braided algebras and their applications to Noncommutative Geometry

We introduce the notion of a braided algebra and study some examples of these. In particular, R-symmetric and R-skew-symmetric algebras of a linear space V equipped with a skew-invertible Hecke symmetry R are braided algebras. We prove the “mountain property” for the numerators and denominators of their Poincaré–Hilbert series (which are always rational functions).