Ideals, idempotents and right cancelable elements in the uniform compactification (Q5952246)

Two cardinal invariants, the covering numbers \(\kappa(G)\) and \(\lambda(G)\), for topological groups \(G\) are used to estimate the number of left ideals, idempotents and right cancelable elements in the uniform compactification \(uG\) of \(G\). \(\kappa(G)\) is the smallest cardinal \(\tau\) such that for each neighborhood \(U\) of the identity \(e\) of \(G\), at most \(\tau\) sets of the form \(Ux\), \(x\in G\), cover \(G\). The authors identify a large class of topological groups, containing all locally compact groups, such that for each group \(G\) in that class \(uG\) contains \(2^{2^{\kappa(G)}}\) minimal left ideals and \(uG \setminus G\) has \(2^{2^{\kappa(G)}}\) right cancelable (in \(uG\)) elements. \(\lambda(G)\) is the minimal cardinality \(\tau\) such that for each neighborhood \(U\) of \(e\) the number of sets of the form \(xUy\), \(x,y\in G\), required to cover \(G\) is \(\leq\tau\). Conditions under which \(uG\) has at least \(2^{2^{\lambda(G)}}\) idempotents are given. Some applications are considered.