Pontryagin duality in the class of precompact abelian groups and the Baire property (Q1940197)

The first examples of precompact noncompact reflexive groups were pseudocompact groups without infinite compact subsets \textit{S. Ardanza-Trevijano} et al. [Forum Math. 24, No. 2, 289--302 (2012; Zbl 1259.22001)] and \textit{S. Macario} and the reviewer [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 215, No. 4, 655--663 (2011; Zbl 1215.54015)]. These groups furnished natural candidates because it was already known that (1) any precompact group \(G\) such that neither \(G\) nor \(G^\wedge\) has infinite compact subsets must be reflexive and that (2) duals of pseudocompact groups contain no infinite compact subsets [\textit{S. Hernández} and \textit{S. Macario}, Arch. Math. 80, No. 3, 271--283 (2003; Zbl 1025.22003)]. The present paper studies this latter property in depth. The absence of infinite compact subsets in duals of pseudocompact groups is deduced from two of their properties: the Baire property and the \textit{open refinement condition} (ORC). The Baire property is known to imply that only eventually constant sequences can be convergent in the dual. By Lemma 2.5 of the present paper, the pointwise closure of every countable subset of the dual of a group with the ORC property remains countable (Lemma 2.5 actually shows that this property is equivalent to the ORC). Since countable compact spaces always contain convergent sequences, it follows that duals of Baire groups with the ORC property do not contain infinite compact subsets in the topology of pointwise convergence. Once the consequences of the combination of the ORC and the Baire property are established in Section 2, Section 3 studies the behaviour of these properties under homomorphic images, products and extensions. In particular, and in contrast with what happens for general topological groups, the class of precompact Baire groups is shown to be closed under products. The final theorem of this Section proves that an \(\omega\)-narrow \(G\) that can be obtained as the extension of a Baire topological group that satisfies the ORC by a closed pseudocompact subgroup is a Baire group that satisfies ORC. Section 4 deals with the existence of groups with the properties described above as quotients and subgroups of other precompact groups. Precompact abelian groups with the Baire property that satisfy ORC need not be pseudocompact but all of them can be described as a quotient of a reflexive precompact group (that, in addition, satisfies ORC, is Baire and has no infinite compact subsets). This furnishes examples of reflexive precompact nonpseudocompact groups. Among the remaining results proved in this section we may include that every compact abelian group contains a nonreflexive dense Baire subgroup that satisfies ORC and that every compact abelian group of weight at least \(2^\omega\) has a proper dense reflexive pseudocompact subgroup.