Direct sums and products in topological groups and vector spaces (Q5964429)

The direct product of a family of groups \(\{G_i:i\in I\}\) is the group \(\prod_{i\in I}G_i\), consisting of all sequences \(\{g_i\}_{i\in I}\) such that \(g_i\in G_i\) for every \(i\in I\), endowed with the coordinate-wise group operations. The direct sum \(\bigoplus_{i\in I}G_i\) is the subgroup of \(\prod_{i\in I}G_i\) consisting of all sequences \(\{g_i\}_{i\in I}\in\prod_{i\in I}G_i\) for which \(\{i\in I:g_i\neq0_{G_i}\}\) is finite. Inspired by an idea of \textit{N. J. Kalton} [Isr. J. Math. 10, 402--412 (1971; Zbl 0226.22005)], the authors undertake a uniform treatment of a problem of the existence of direct sums and direct products inside topological groups and topological vector spaces. They introduce the notions of topological independence, absolute summability, and absolute Cauchy summability of a given subset \(A\) of an abelian topological group \(G\): \(A\) is absolutely Cauchy summable provided that for every open neighbourhood \(U\) of \(0\) one can find a finite set \(F\subseteq A\) such that the subgroup generated by \(A\setminus F\) is contained in \(U\); \(A\) is absolutely summable if for every family \(\{z_a : a\in A\}\) of integers there exists \(g\in G\) such that the net \(\{\sum_{a\in F}z_aa:F\subseteq A\) is finite\(\}\) converges to \(g\); \(A\) is topologically independent provided that \(0\notin A\) and for every neighbourhood \(W\) of \(0\) there exists a neighbourhood \(V\) of \(0\) such that for every finite set \(F\subseteq A\) and every family \(\{z_a : a\in F\}\) of integers, \(\sum_{a\in F}z_aa\in V\) implies that \(z_aa\in W\) for all \(a\in F\). The following are the main results of the paper: (1) An abelian topological group contains a direct product (direct sum) of \(\kappa\)-many non-trivial topological groups if and only if it contains a topologically independent absolutely (Cauchy) summable subset of cardinality \(\kappa\). (2) A topological vector space contains the direct sum \(\mathbb R^{(\mathbb N)}\) as its subspace if and only if it has an infinite absolutely Cauchy summable set. (3) A topological vector space contains the direct product \(\mathbb R^{\mathbb N}\) as its subspace if and only if it has an \(\mathbb R^{\mathbb N}\) multiplier convergent series \(\sum_{n=0}^\infty a_n\) of non-zero elements, i.e., \(\sum_{n=0}^\infty f(n)a_n\) converges for every \(f\in\mathbb R^{\mathbb N}\). The authors answer a question of Hušek and generalize results by Bessaga-Pelczynski-Rolewicz, Dominguez-Tarieladze, and Lipecki.