Normally preordered spaces and utilities (Q1943696)

The paper deals with the problem of knowing whether a topological preordered space (and, in particular, a topological manifold) is normally preordered. The following two main results are presented: (1) Every \(k_{\omega}\)-space equipped with a closed preorder is a normally preordered space. (2) Every second countable regularly preordered space is a perfectly normally preordered space. As the author explains in the introduction of the paper, result (1) holds in particular for topological manifolds, which makes it useful for applications in dynamical systems (where the preorder arises from the orbit dynamics of the dynamical system), general relativity (where the preorder is the causal preorder of the spacetime manifold) and microeconomics (where the preorder arises from the preferences of the agent). Its proof is based on the following generalization to preordered spaces of an extension theorem of [\textit{L. Nachbin}, Topology and Order. Princeton, New-Jersey-Toronto-New York-London: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. (1965; Zbl 0131.37903)]: Any continuous isotone function \(f: S\to [0,1]\) defined on a compact subspace \(S\) of a normally preordered space \(E\) can be extended to a function \(F: E\to [0,1]\). This generalization is obtained by the author from his characterization of a function \(f: S\to [0,1]\), defined on a subspace \(S\) of a normally preordered space \(E\), that is extendible to a function on the whole space \(E\). On the other hand, from result (2) the author gets that every second countable regularly preordered space admits a countable continuous utility representation. This is a contribution to the problem (relevant in the economics literature) of knowing under which conditions a representation through continuous utilities exists.