Compact condensations and compactifications (Q2415918)

If \(X\) is a set and \(\mathcal S\) is a family of topologies on \(X\), then \(\sup(\mathcal S)\) (called the supremum of \(\mathcal S\)) is the topology whose subbase is the family \(\bigcup\mathcal S\). If \(X\) is a space, then \(\tau(X)\) is its topology. Given a Tychonoff space \(X\), let \(\mathcal C(X)=\{\mu: \mu\) is a compact Hausdorff topology on \(X\) and \(\mu\subset \tau(X)\}\). The authors call \(X\) \textit{strongly bicompactly condensable} if \(\sup(\mathcal C(X)) =\tau(X)\). Any collection \(\mathcal S\subset \mathcal C(X)\) with \(\sup(\mathcal S)=\tau(X)\) determines a compactification \(K(\mathcal S)\) of the space \(X\). Given a strongly bicompactly condensable space \(X\), the authors examine which compactifications of \(X\) coincide with \(K(\mathcal S)\) for some family \(\mathcal S \subset \mathcal C(X)\) such that \(\sup (\mathcal S)=\tau(X)\). Such compactifications are said to be of SBC type. It is proved in the paper that for any locally compact space \(X\), (a) the one-point compactification of \(X\) is of SBC type; (b) any zero-dimensional compactification of \(X\) is of SBC type; (c) if each non-empty open subset of \(X\) contains a copy of the interval \([0,1]\), then every compactification of \(X\) is of SBC type. The authors also establish that, for a countable space \(X\), its Stone-Čech compactification \(\beta X\) is of SBC type if and only if \(X\) is scattered. Besides, \(\beta X\) is of SBC type for any space \(X\) with at most one non-isolated point.