Independent group topologies on abelian groups (Q1612270)

The authors are concerned with the class of topological groups that admit an independent topology. Independent topologies appear in a natural way when studying \(T_{1}\)-complementary topologies. In fact, two non-discrete topologies \(\tau_{1}\) and \(\tau_{2}\) on a set \(X\) are said to be \(T_{1}\)-complementary if their union \(\tau_{1}\cup \tau_{2}\) generates the discrete topology and their intersection \(\tau_{1}\cap \tau_{2}\) is the cofinite topology on \(X\). So, the notion of \(T_{1}\)-complementary topology splits in two components: transversality (\(\tau_{1}\cup \tau_{2}\) generates the discrete topology) and independence (\(\tau_{1}\cap \tau_{2}\) is the cofinite topology). Moreover, these two components make special sense in the field of topological groups. In fact, it has been shown by the authors and \textit{D. Dikranjan} [On transversal group topologies, preprint] that there are no \(T_{1}\)-complementary group topologies on infinite groups. An interesting consequence of the results of the authors is that the investigation of independent group topologies involves two seemingly unrelated topics: unconditionally closed subsets of topological groups and countably compact group topologies without non-trivial convergent sequences. This article is organized as follows. In Section 2 it is proved that a countably infinite group does not admit independent Hausdorff group topologies (the proof is based on (a special case of) Arhangelskiĭ's theorem that every group topology on a countable group contains a weaker group topology with a countable base), and that if \(\tau_{1}\) and \(\tau_{2}\) are independent Hausdorff topologies on a set \(X\) such that \(\tau_{1}\) is sequential, then the space \((X, \tau_{2})\) is countably compact and does not contain non-trivial convergent sequences. Section 3 is devoted to almost torsion-free groups and Abelian groups of prime order are considered in Section 4. The main results of these sections are the following: Suppose that Martin's Axiom holds. Then every Abelian almost torsion-free topological group (respectively, every Abelian topological group of prime order) \((G,\tau)\) such that both the cardinal of \(G\) and the cardinal of \(\tau\) is the continuum admits a Hausdorff group topology \({\mathcal T}\) with the following properties: (a) the topologies \(\tau\) and \({\mathcal T}\) are independent, (b) the group \((G,{\mathcal T})\) is countably compact and does not contain non-trivial convergent sequences, and (c) the group \((G,{\mathcal T})\) is connected and locally connected (respectively, strongly zero-dimensional). In Section 5 the authors study the general case. They connect the results obtained separately for Abelian almost torsion-free groups and groups of prime order. First, they show that all proper unconditionally closed subsets of an Abelian group \(G\) are finite if and only if \(G\) is either an almost torsion-free group or has prime order. This result and the results of the previous sections imply the main result of the paper on independent group topologies: Let \(G\) be an Abelian group of size the continuum without non-trivial unconditionally closed subgroups, and let \(\tau\) be a Hausdorff group topology on \(G\) of cardinal the continuum. Then under Martin's Axiom, there exists a Hausdorff group topology \(\mathcal T\) on \(G\) with the following properties: (a) the topologies \(\tau\) and \(\mathcal T\) are independent, and (b) the group \((G,{\mathcal T})\) is countably compact and does not contain non-trivial convergent sequences. The paper ends with several open questions some of them related to the fact whether the previous results are valid in \(ZFC\).