The combinatorics of Borel covers (Q1612215)

There are many ways of indicating that a topological space is small. The authors consider classical approaches that involve covers: given a sequence of covers of one type, one can choose a few sets from each term so as to obtain a cover of another type (possibly the same). In the paper under review `a few' can mean `one' or `finitely many' and the types of covers are, classically, countable open covers, countable open \(\omega\)-covers (every finite set sits in a member of the cover) and countable open \(\gamma\)-covers (every elements belongs to all but finitely many elements of the cover). The authors replace `open' `Borel' and largely confine themselves to subspaces of the real line. With the addition of one more selection principle -- either all but finitely many terms have a finite subcover or one chooses finitely many members from each to form a cover of the other type -- this leads to an at first bewildering array of, potentially, 27 classes of spaces. Fortunately, the authors systematically bring order in this array. The graph of interrelations is a homomorphic image of the graph for the open situation, with just 7 distinct classes remaining, as opposed to 11 in the case of open covers. The combined diagram of interrelations shows 18 classes and examples show that no further collapse is possible.