Vietoris hyperspaces over scattered Priestley spaces (Q2164416)

This paper deals with hyperspaces of Priestley spaces. A Priestley space is a pair \(\langle X,\leq\rangle\), where \(X\) is a compact topological space and \(\leq\) is a partial ordering of the points of \(X\) such that whenever \(x\not\leq y\) there is a clopen final set \(V\), with \(x\in V\subseteq X\setminus\{y\}\). (Clopen means being both closed and open topologically and final means that \(w\in V\) whenever \(v\in V\) and \(v\leq w\).) It is quite easy to check that the topologies of Priestley spaces are Hausdorff and zero-dimensional (i.e., Boolean spaces). If \(X\) is a Priestley space, the authors consider the hyperspace \(H(X)\) consisting of the closed nonempty subsets of \(X\) that are initial. (This means that when \(x\) is in the set and \(y\leq x\) then \(y\) is in the set. There is a misprint in the first sentence of the authors' abstract: \textit{final} should read \textit{initial}.) They define the Vietoris topology on \(H(X)\) to be generated by sets of the form \(U^+:=\{A\in H(X):A\subseteq U\}\), where \(U\) is clopen and initial; as well as sets of the form \(V^-:=\{A\in H(X):A\cap V\neq\emptyset\}\), where \(V\) is clopen and final. With this topology (possibly more appropriately called the Priestley-Vietoris topology), as well as the partial ordering of inclusion, \(H(X)\) is itself shown to be a Priestley space. Moreover, the mapping \(x\to \{y\in X: y\leq x\}\) defines a topological embedding of \(X\) into \(H(X)\). A Hausdorff space \(X\) is a Skula space if its open sets are (basically) generated from differences \(U\setminus V\), where \(U\) and \(V\) are open sets in some topology on \(X\). (For example, the Sorgenfrey topology on the real line is Skula via the topology of right-unbounded open rays.) A compact Skula space is shown to be a scattered Boolean space, admitting a natural well-founded partial order that turns it into a Priestley space. Hence with Skula spaces one has the notion of scattered rank, as well as of well-founded rank. It is shown in the present paper that \(H(X)\) is a Skula space whenever \(X\) is a compact Skula space. As the authors state in their abstract: ``One of our main objectives is investigating Vietoris hyperspaces of general Priestley spaces, addressing the question when their topologies are Skula and computing the associated ordinal ranks. We apply our results to scattered compact spaces based on certain almost disjoint families, in particular, Lusin families and ladder systems.''