Functorial topologies and finite-index subgroups of Abelian groups (Q645205)

The article is devoted to the investigation of the concept of functorial group topologies on abelian groups introduced by \textit{B. Charles} [``Méthodes topologiques en théorie des groupes abéliens'', Proc. Colloq. on Abelian Groups 29--42 (1964; Zbl 0132.27203)]. A functorial topology is a functor \(\mathcal{T}\) from the category of all abelian groups \(\mathbf{Ab}\) into the category \(\mathbf{TopAb}\) of all abelian topological groups and their morphisms that is a right inverse to the forgetful functor \(U: \mathbf{TopAb} \to \mathbf{Ab}\). The authors mainly focus their attention on the three functorial topologies for an abelian group \(G\): the profinite topology \(\gamma_G\) that has the poset \(\mathcal{C}(G)\) of all finite-index subgroups as a base of the neighborhoods of \(0\); the natural topology \(\nu_G\) that has the countable family of subgroups \(\{ mG: m\in \mathbb{N}\}\) as a base of the neighborhoods of \(0\); and the Bohr topology \(\mathcal{P}_G\) that is the initial topology of all homomorphisms \(G\to \mathbb{T}\). The profinite topology and its connection to other functorial topologies is the main subject of the paper. The authors prove that in the lattice of all group topologies on an abelian group the equality \(\gamma_G =\inf\{ \nu_G, \mathcal{P}_G\}\) holds. Moreover, \(\gamma_G = \nu_G\) iff \(|\mathcal{C}(G)|<\mathfrak{c}\) iff \(G/mG\) is finite for every natural \(m\). Various features of the poset \(\mathcal{C}(G)\) (as its cardinality, cofinality etc.) are described. The authors define the equalizer \(\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{T}, \mathcal{S})\) of a pair of functorial topologies \(\mathcal{T}\) and \(\mathcal{S}\) as \(\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{T}, \mathcal{S}) =\{ G\in \mathbf{Ab}: \mathcal{T}_G =\mathcal{S}_G \}\). They describe some basic properties of \(\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{T}, \mathcal{S})\) and arrive at the standard correspondence between functorial topologies and classes of abelian groups stable under isomorphisms, finite products and subgroups. They provide also examples of functorial topologies to better illustrate the usefulness of the equalizer.