Chain conditions and weak topologies (Q1013822)

The paper is devoted to the study of several strengthenings of the countable chain condition of particular topological vector spaces. A topological vector space fulfills the point-finite countability condition (abbreviated by pcc), or the half-pcc, if every point-finite family of open sets, or of open half-spaces, is countable. The pcc, or the half-pcc, of a Banach space endowed with its weak topology are characterized, e.g., by separability of the range of each weakly continuous, or bounded linear, mapping to \(c_0(\omega_1)\). A number of further results of the first section is related to the question under what additional condition half-pcc Banach spaces are separable. The pcc property of \(C(K)\) spaces with respect to the weak and to the pointwise convergence topologies is investigated in the next section. Examples of separable and nonseparable non-metrizable scattered compact spaces \(K\) are given in ZFC such that \(C(K)\) is weakly pcc. A~known peculiar example of a weakly pcc space is \(C(K)\) with the Kunen compact \(K\), which exists under the continuum hypothesis. Under the axiom \(\diamond\), an example of another nonmetrizable compact space \(K\) with separable subspaces countable and \(C(K)\) weakly pcc is constructed. This example gives answers to several formerly posed problems. The last section is devoted to chain conditions in duals of Banach spaces with respect to the weak-star topology. Apart from the new results, several open problems are also stated.