A continuum without non-block points (Q505378)

A continuum is a compact connected Hausdorff space. A topological space \(A\) is a semicontinuum if for any two points \(p,q \in A\) there exists a continuum \(K \subset A\) such that \(p,q \in K\). For a continuum \(X\), and points \(x,p \in X\), the symbol \(\kappa (x;p)\) denotes the union of all subcontinua of \(X\) containing \(x\) and contained in \(X \setminus {p}\), and the composant \(\kappa (p)\) of \(p\) in \(X\) is the union of all proper subcontinua of \(X\) containing \(p\). The point \(x\) is coastal if \(\kappa (x;p)\) is dense in \(X\) for some \(p \in X\) and \(p\) is a non-block point if \(\kappa (x;p)\) is dense for some \(x \in X\). The continuum \(X\) is coastal if every point in \(X\) is coastal. It is known that every metric continuum is coastal. In [Topology Appl. 193, 152--161 (2015; Zbl 1337.54023)], the author studied the question of whether non-metric continua are coastal. He has reduced the problem to considering only indecomposable continua with exactly one composant; these are called ``Bellamy continua'', since \textit{D. P. Bellamy} constructed the first example in ZFC [Fundam. Math. 101, 129--134 (1978; Zbl 0398.54020)]. There are very few known Bellamy continua. The one most well studied is the Stone-Čech remainder \(\mathbb {H}^*\) of the half line which, assuming the axiom Near Coherence Filters (NCF), is a Bellamy continuum. In the paper under review, the author shows that for any composant \(E\) of \(\mathbb {H}^*\) and corresponding near-coherence-class \(\mathcal{E} \subset \omega^*\), the following are equivalent: (1) \(E\) properly contains a dense semicontinuum. (2) Each countable subset of \(E\) is contained in a dense proper semicontinuum of \(E\). (3) Each countable subset of \(E\) is disjoint from some dense proper semicontinuum of \(E\). (4) \(\mathcal{E}\) has a minimal element in the finite-to-one weakly increasing order of ultrafilters. (5) \(\mathcal {E}\) has a \(Q\)-point. As a consequence, it is obtained that NCF is equivalent to \(\mathbb {H}^*\) containing no proper dense semicontinuum and no non-block points.