Topological and nonstandard extensions (Q1774120)

The authors describe a general topological framework that encompasses both the Stone-Čech compactification of a discrete space \(X\) and the ``nonstandard extensions'' of \(X\), in the sense of nonstandard analysis. The basic notion is that of topological extension of a set \(X\), consisting of two ingredients; (i) a \({\mathbf T}_i\) space \(X^*\) containing \(X\) as a dense discrete subset; and (ii) an assignment \(f\mapsto f^*\) that takes a self-map on \(X\) to a continuous extension on \(X^*\). This assignment furthermore commutes with function composition, and satisfies the condition that \(f^*\) and \(g^*\) agree on the closure in \(X^*\) of any subset of \(X\) upon which \(f\) and \(g\) agree. (These commutation and agreement properties clearly hold if the extension topology is Hausdorff; e.g., when \(X^*\) is the Stone-Čech extension \(\beta X\), but need to be stipulated in the more general context of \({\mathbf T}_1\) spaces.) A topological extension \(X^*\) of \(X\) is termed a star extension if the closed sets for the topology on \(X^*\) are subbasically generated by the (necessarily closed) sets that are the inverse images of singletons in \(X^*\) under maps of the form \(f^*\). One of the main results of the paper is that every elementary extension of \(X\) in the sense of logic/nonstandard analysis (i.e., the relevant first-order signature consists of names for all functions \(f: X^n\to X\), \(n\in\mathbb{N}\)) may be naturally viewed as a star extension of \(X\). In particular each ultrapower extension \(X^X/{\mathcal U}\), where \({\mathcal U}\in\beta X\), may be so viewed. The authors characterize both the ultrapower extensions and the elementary extensions of a set in terms of topological extensions. They also establish connections between the present work and special classes of ultrafilters. Several questions are posed.