Span, chainability and the continua \(\mathbb H^{\ast}\) and \(\mathbb I_{u}\) (Q555816)

Let \(\mathbb{H}\) denote the half line \([0,\infty)\). The continuum \(\mathbb{H}^{*}\) is the remainder of the Stone-Čech compactification \(\beta\mathbb{H}\). Let \(\pi:\omega \times I \rightarrow \omega\) be the map given by \(\pi(n,x)=n\), where \(I\) denotes the unit interval \([0,1]\). The continuum \(\mathbb{I}_{u}\) is the preimage under Stone-Čech extension \(\beta\pi\) of an ultrafilter \(u\in \omega^{*}\). In this paper the authors prove that the continua \(\mathbb{H}^{*}\) and \(\mathbb{I}_{u}\) (for any ultrafilter \(u\)) are nonchainable and have nonzero span. Further they show that under the Continuum Hypothesis the surjective symmetric span of these continua is nonzero. Some consequences are discussed.