On embeddings of the countable fan space (Q676968)

The countable fan space \(V_\omega\) is the space obtained by identifying the limit point of the topological sum of countably many convergent sequences (the limits become the point \(*\)). Arkhangel'skij first raised the problem whether \(V _\omega\) can be embedded into a feebly compact or countably compact space, while having nice separation properties (like regularity). (Note that the author uses the word pseudocompact instead of feebly compact, i.e. every locally finite collection of non-empty open sets is finite; the notions coincide for completely regular spaces.) This problem is studied in this paper with the help of two cardinal invariants of the continuum, \({\mathfrak d}\) (the smallest cardinality of a dominating subset of \((\omega^\omega, \leq^*)\)) and \({\mathfrak b}\) (the smallest unbounded subset of the aforementioned poset). It is well known that \(\chi(*, V_\omega) = {\mathfrak d}\). In the first section of the paper the author proves that if \(V_\omega\) is densely embedded in some regular feebly compact space \(X\), then the tightness \(t(*, X)\) must be at least \({\mathfrak b}\). This shows in particular that \(V_\omega\) cannot be densely embedded in a countably tight feebly compact space, a result known from the author's earlier paper [Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, II. Ser. 44, No. 2, 169-172 (1995; Zbl 0832.54024)]. He then proceeds to show that one can embed \(V_\omega\) densely in a regular feebly compact space \(X\) that is first countable, except at \(*\), where we have \(\chi(*,X) = t(*,X) = {\mathfrak b}\), under the assumption that \({\mathfrak b} = {\mathfrak d}\). If moreover both are equal to \(\omega_1\) we can even choose \(X\) to be compact. In the second section the author shows that the countable fan space can be embedded as a closed set into a countably tight feebly compact space which is regular except at \(*\). If we assume \({\mathfrak b} = {\mathfrak d}\) again, we can embed it as a closed set in a regular feebly compact \(X'\), but then again we have \(\chi(*,X') = t(*,X') = {\mathfrak b}\). This construction is somewhat involved. The final section uses a generalization of densely embedded (called d-embedded), that shows that the tightness of \(*\) in \(X'\) is best possible.