The infinite unitary and related groups are algebraically determined Polish groups (Q438694)

Let \(\mathbf{S}\) be a subcategory of the category \(\mathbf{TopGr}\) of all Hausdorff topological groups. An object \(G\) of \(\mathbf{S}\) is called \textit{algebraically determined} in \(\mathbf{S}\) if for every object \(H\) in \(\mathbf{S}\) and every (abstract) isomorphism \(\phi : H\to G\) we have that \(\phi\) is a topological isomorphism. If \(\mathbf{S}=\mathbf{Pol}\) is the full subcategory of all Polish groups, we call the algebraically determined objects of \(\mathbf{Pol}\) \textit{simply algebraically determined Polish groups}. The question whether every isomorphism of a Polish group onto a given Polish group is automatically topological was considered by many authors as Cartan, van der Vaerden, Freudenthal, Borel and Tits and others. Many groups of interest have been shown to be algebraically determined Polish groups. This list includes \(S_\infty\), the group of all permutations of the natural numbers, all compact connected metric groups with totally disconnected center (which includes the compact connected semisimple Lie groups), the \(ax+b\) group, the homeomorphism groups of manifolds, the group of measure preserving transformations and others. The authors prove that the unitary group and the complex isometry group of a separable infinite dimensional complex Hilbert space are algebraically determined Polish groups. On the other hand, they show that the finite dimensional unitary groups \(U(n)\) are not algebraically determined Polish groups.