Finitely generated subgroups as von Neumann radicals of an abelian group (Q469371)

For an abelian topological group \(G\), \(\widehat G\) denotes the group of all continuous characters on \(G\) endowed with the compact-open topology and \(\mathbf{n}(G) =\bigcap_{\chi\in \widehat G}\, ker \chi\) denotes the von Neumann radical of \(G\). Following von Neumann, a group \(G\) is called minimally almost periodic (MinAP) if \(\mathbf{n}(G) = G\), and it is called maximally almost periodic if \(\mathbf{n}(G) = 0\). In this paper, the author studies several questions related to the existence of nondiscrete topologies on an infinte abelian group \(G\). Some sample results: {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[(1)] Every infinite finitely generated abelian group \(G\) admits a complete Hausdorff minimally almost periodic group topology (this partially solves a question by \textit{W. Comfort} [``Problems on topological groups and other homogeneous spaces'', in: Open problems in topology. Amsterdam: North-Holland. 314--347 (1990; Zbl 0718.54001)]). \item[(2)] Let \(G\) be an abelian group that is not bounded, then for every finitely generated subgroup \(H\) of \(G\) there exists a complete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(H =\mathbf{n}(G; \tau)\). \item[(3)] Let \(G\) be an infinite abelian bounded group and let \(H\) be a finite subgroup of \(G\), then the following statements are equivalent: i) \(G\) contains a subgroup of the form \(H^{(\omega)}\); ii) there exists a complete non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\); iii) there exists a non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\). \item[(4)] Let \(G\) be an infinite abelian group and let \(H\) be a finitely generated subgroup of \(G\), then there exists a complete non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\) if and only if there exists a non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\). \item[(5)] Let \(G\) be an infinite abelian group, then the following statements are equivalent: i) For every finitely generated subgroup \(H\) of \(G\), there exists a non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\); ii) \(G\) satisfies one of the following conditions: a) \(\exp G = \infty\), b) \(\exp G = m\) is finite and \(G\) contains a subgroup of the form \(Z(m)^{(\omega)}\). \item[(6)] All finite subgroups \(H\) of an infinite bounded abelian group \(G\) satisfy that there exists a non-discrete Hausdorff group topology \(\tau\) on \(G\) such that \(\mathbf{n}(G,\tau) = H\) if and only if all leading Ulm-Kaplansky invariants of \(G\) are infinite. \end{itemize}} Several interesting and nontrivial techniques are developed in this paper.