Free \(G\)-spaces and maximal equivariant compactifications (Q2505603): Difference between revisions

A \(G\)-space is a Tychonoff space \(X\) with a given continuous action of the Hausdorff topological group \(G\). In the present paper, the authors are interested in free \(G\)-spaces and semifree \(G\)-spaces, where \(G\) is a compact Lie group. They present a very elegant example of a free \(G\)-space \(X\) which does not have a free \(G\)-compactification: let \(G=\mathbb Z_2=\{-1,1\}\) act on the unit sphere \(X\) of the separable Hilbert space \(\ell^2\) by scalar multiplication. The authors prove that if \(G\) is a compact Lie group, then every noncompact free \(G\)-space admits a based-free \(G\)-compactification of the same weight. That the action is free is essential, since a based-free \(G\)-space need not have a based-free \(G\)-compactification. For a \(G\)-space \(X\), characterizations of the maximal \(G\)-compactification \(\beta_GX\) of \(X\) are given. As a corollary, the authors obtain for example the known result that if \(G\) is a compact group and \(X\) is a \(G\)-space, then the equality \((\beta_G X)/G= \beta (X/G)\) holds. Here \(\beta Y\) is the Čech-Stone compactification of the Tychonoff space \(Y\).