Sorgenfrey line and continuous separating families (Q1888463)

According to \textit{E. N. Stepanova} [Math. Notes 53, 308--314 (1993); transl. from Mat. Zametki 53, No. 3, 92-101 (1993; Zbl 0805.54028)], a continuous separating family is a continuous mapping \(\Phi:X^2\setminus \Delta\rightarrow {\mathcal C}_u(X),\) where \(\Delta=\{(x,x):x\in X\}\) and \({\mathcal C}_u(X)\) is the space of continuous real-valued functions on a topological space \(X\) with the uniform convergence topology, such that if \(f_{x,y}=\Phi(x,y),\) then \(f_{x,y}(x)\not = f_{x,y}(y).\) The Sorgenfrey line \(S\) has a continuous separating family, but \textit{H. R. Bennett} and \textit{D. J. Lutzer} [Topology Appl. 119, No.3, 305-314 (2002; Zbl 0989.54037)] proved that under CH its linearly ordered extension \(S^*=\mathbb{R}\times \{n\in \mathbb{Z}:n\leq 0\}\) (equipped with the order topology generated by the lexicographical order on \(S^*\)) does not possess such a family. They also asked whether this result can be proved in ZFC. In the present article the authors show that the answer is positive. Indeed they show in ZFC that any linearly ordered extension of \(S\) does not admit a continuous separating family.