Note on the point character of \(\ell_1\)-spaces (Q2448978)

A. H. Stone's `Coincidence Theorem' shows that paracompactness and full normality are equivalent. Its proof shows that in a uniform space every uniform cover has a locally finite open refinement. The obvious question, whether that refinement may be taken to be uniform as well was raised by \textit{A. H. Stone} in [Q. J. Math., Oxf. II. Ser. 11, 105--115 (1960; Zbl 0096.37402)]. The answer is negative and quite dramatically so: spaces like \(\ell_\infty(\kappa)\) and \(\ell_1(\kappa)\) do not have this property. The present paper quantifies this in the following way: first define the order, \(\operatorname{ord} \mathcal{U}\), of a cover \(\mathcal U\) to be the smallest cardinal \(\beta\) such that\(\bigl| \{U\in\mathcal{U}:x\in U\}\bigr| <\beta\) for all \(x\) in the underlying set. The point character, \(\operatorname{pc}(X)\), of a uniform space \(X\) is defined to be the minimum \(\kappa\) such that every uniform cover \(\mathcal U\) has a uniform refinement~\(\mathcal V\) with \(\operatorname{ord}\mathcal{V}\leq\kappa\). In \textit{J. Pelant} and \textit{V. Rödl} [Discrete Math. 108, No. 1--3, 75--81 (1992; Zbl 0773.54017)] it was shown that \(\operatorname{pc}(\ell_p(\omega_\alpha))\geq\omega_\alpha\) for limit ordinals~\(\alpha\) and \(p\geq1\). The authors complement this by showing that \(\operatorname{pc} (\ell_1(\omega_{\alpha+n})) \geq\omega_\alpha\) for every ordinal~\(\alpha\) and every \(n\in\omega\).