A general lineability criterion for complements of vector spaces (Q6085349)

Let us recall some basic concepts that are studied in the paper. If \(E\) is a vector space, \(\beta \leq \dim (E)\) is a cardinal number, and \(A\subset E\), then \(A\) is said to be: (1) Lineable if there is an infinite-dimensional vector subspace \(F\) of \(E\) such that \(F\backslash \{0\}\subset A\); (2) \(\beta \)-lineable if there exists a vector subspace \(F_{\beta }\) of \(E\) with \(\dim (F_{\beta })=\beta \) and \(F_{\beta }\backslash \{0\}\subset A\). If \(\alpha \) is another cardinal number, with \(\alpha <\beta \), then \(A\) is said to be \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-lineable if it is \(\alpha \)-lineable and for every subspace \(F_{\alpha }\subset E\) with \(F_{\alpha }\subset A\cup \{0\}\) and \(\dim (F_{\alpha })=\alpha \), there is a subspace \(F_{\beta }\subset E\) with \(\dim (F_{\beta })=\beta \) and \(F_{\alpha }\subset F_{\beta }\subset A\cup \{0\}\). If \(X\) is a vector space and \(Y\) a vector subspace of \(X\), we denote the algebraic codimension of \(Y\) by \(\mathrm{codim}(Y)\). The paper has four sections. The authors first prove in Section 2 a criterion of \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-lineability in the context of differences in vector spaces: Theorem. Let \(E\) be a vector space and \(F\) be a proper subspace of \(E\). Then \(E\backslash F\) is \((\alpha ,\mathrm{codim}(F))\)-lineable for all \(\alpha <\mathrm{codim}(F)\). Next, they present three (almost) direct corollaries to this result. A concept, related to \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-lineability is studied in Section 3, namely \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-spaceability (for the definition see the introduction to Section 3). The authors present two criteria for non-\((\alpha ,\beta )\)-spaceability. One of these two main results follows. Theorem. Let \(E\) be a metrizable topological vector space and \(F\) be a proper vector subspace of \(E\). If \(F\) has an infinite codimension, then \(E\backslash F\) is not \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-spaceable for all \(\aleph_0 \leq \alpha \leq \mathrm{codim}(F)\), regardless of the cardinal number \(\beta \). As consequences of the main results and their corollaries, the authors recover or generalize in the last section some known results on lineability and spaceability.