Haar-smallest sets (Q2329357)

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Haar-smallest sets
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    Haar-smallest sets (English)
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    17 October 2019
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    The main aim of this paper is to develop and study a hierarchy of ``small'' sets in Abelian Polish groups. A subset \(A\) of an abelian Polish group \(X\) is called Haar-countable (respectively, Haar-finite, or Haar-\(n\)) if there are a Borel hull \(B \supseteq A\) and a topological copy \(C\) of the Cantor space in \(X\) such that \((C+x) \cap B\) is countable (respectively, finite, or of size \(n\)). These notions of smallness, and variations thereof, have been studied by several other authors. This paper brings them together into a unified study. The author proves the existence of Haar-\((n+1)\) sets that are not Haar-\(n\), of Haar-finite sets that are not Haar-\(n\) for any \(n\), and of Haar-countable sets that are not Haar-finite. Thus the notions of smallness defined in the previous paragraph are all distinct. Other results are proved along these lines, as well as some other interesting facts concerning these notions of smallness (e.g., that all countable sets are Haar-\(1\) but not all Haar-\(1\) sets need be countable). The most technical result in the paper, which answers a question of Swaczyna, is that the family of compact Haar-finite subsets of \(\mathbb R\) does not generate an ideal. In other words, there are two compact Haar-finite subsets of \(\mathbb R\) whose union is not Haar-finite. The construction is adapted to answer as well a previously open question of Banakh concerning the so-called ``null-finite'' subsets of \(\mathbb R\).
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    Haar-small sets
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    Haar measure
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    (semi-)ideals
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    Polish groups
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