Closure-preserving covers by small sets (Q1086877)

This paper is an extensive study of spaces having closure-preserving J- covers (c-p J-covers, for short). Here J refers to an ideal of closed sets, i.e., J contains the union of all of its finite subcollections and all closed subsets of its members. The ''smallness'' of sets is defined in terms of the ideal J. The general results obtained by the authors were motivated by, and have as corollaries, certain results concerning c-p covers by finite closed sets, or closed countable sets, or compact sets. For example, the result of \textit{Y. Katuta} [Proc. Japan Acad. 50, 826-828 (1974; Zbl 0329.54016)] and \textit{H. Potoczny} and \textit{H. Junnila} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 53, 523-529 (1975; Zbl 0318.54018)] that every space having a c-p cover by compact closed sets is metacompact. Another example is the result of \textit{Y. Yajima} [Pac. J. Math. 69, 571-578 (1977; Zbl 0352.54012)] that every metacompact \(\sigma\)-discrete space has a c-p cover by finite sets. A brief review cannot do justice to the scope of the results. In general, the authors present results relating covering properties, generalized scattered sets, and topological games. Some of the specific topics are: Special c-p families; sufficient conditions for metacompactness; existence of c-p covers in metacompact spaces; c-p J- covers, J-scattered spaces, and topological games; hereditary metacompactness and applications to Eberlein compactness. Two particular results are: (1) If a space X has a c-p J-cover, then X is metacompact. (Here J is the ideal of finite sets.) (2) A compact space is Eberlein compact if and only if the space is hereditarily \(\sigma\)-metacompact and has a c-p \(T_ 0\)-separating family of closed sets. The paper also contains a number of examples relevant to its topics.