Extensions of increasing bounded uniformly continuous functions (Q6885496)

This paper can be seen as a uniform analogue of the work initiated by \textit{L. Nachbin} [Topology and order. Translated from the Portuguese by Lulu Bechtolsheim. Princeton-New-Jersey-Toronto-New York-London: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. (1965; Zbl 0131.37903)]. It considers uniform spaces endowed with a (pre-)order \(\preceq\) and seeks to generalize \textit{M. Katětov}'s extension theorem from [Fundam. Math. 38, 85--91 (1951; Zbl 0045.25704); Fundam. Math. 40, 203--205 (1953; Zbl 0053.12304)] for bounded real-valued uniformly continuous functions.\par Given a uniform space \((X,\mathcal{U})\), a preorder~\(\preceq\) on~\(X\), and a bounded, uniformly continuous, and order-preserving function \(f:A\to\mathbb{R}\) on a subspace of~\(X\) one would like to obtain a bounded, uniformly continuous, and order-preserving extension of~\(f\). The main result gives a characterization of when such an extension can be found: one should be able to separate, whenever \(s<t\) in~\(\mathbb{R}\), the preimages \(P_0=f^{-1}\bigl[(-\infty,s]\bigr]\) and \(P_1=f^{-1}\bigl[[t,\infty)\bigr]\) by a uniformly continuous order-preserving function \(g:X\to[0,1]\), which means that \(P_i\subseteq g^{-1}\bigl[\{i\}\bigr]\) for \(i=0,1\). This result is best possible if one does not postulate any interplay between the uniformity and the preorder, but from the main result one can extract a characterization of preordered uniform spaces where the order version of Katětov's result holds. The paper ends with some examples to show that Nachbin's notion of normally ordered space is independent of these characterizing properties.