The chainable continua are the spaces approximated by finite COTS (Q4530183)

A connected ordered topological space (COTS) is a connected topological space with the property: for any three points, one of them separates the other. A Hausdorff reflection of a topological space \(X\) is a topological Hausdorff space \(X_H\) together with a continuous map \(t:X \rightarrow X_H \) such that whenever \(f:X \rightarrow Z\) is continuous and \(Z\) is a Hausdorff space, then for some unique \(\hat{f}: X_H \rightarrow Z\), \(f = \hat{f}t\). A continuous map \(f:X\rightarrow Y\) is called \textit{separating} if whenever \(C,D \subset Y\) are closed and disjoint, then \(f^{-1}(C)\) and \(f^{-1}(D)\) are contained in disjoint open sets. In this paper it is proved that a space is a chainable continuum if and only if it is the Hausdorff reflection of the limit of an inverse sequence of finite COTS and separating maps. A similar characterization of circle-like and generalized Knaster continua is obtained.