Minimal embeddings of topological spaces into the real line (Q735658)

Let \(X\) and \(Y\) be topological spaces and \(f:X\to Y\) a map. If \(f\) is a homeomorphism between \(X\) and some subspace of \(Y,\) then we call \(f\) an embedding of \(X\) into \(Y.\) For example, each second countable regular space is homeomorphic to a subset of the Hilbert cube. The Hilbert cube is then called the ambient space. The ambient space in this paper is the real line \(\mathbb R\) and the minimal embedding of a space into \(\mathbb R\) means the following: A topological space \((X,\tau)\) is called \(\mathbb R\)-minimal if it is homeomorphic to a subspace of \(\mathbb R\) but does not posses this property for any weaker topology \(\tau' \leq \tau, \tau' \neq \tau.\) Clearly that the segment \([a,b]\) is \(\mathbb R\)-minimal, but there are more \(\mathbb R\)-minimal spaces. The result of the paper characterizes such subspaces as follows, where \(\mathbb R^*\) denotes the two-point compactification of \(\mathbb R\) and \(\Gamma_A\) the family of nontrivial components of \(A\): A subspace \(A\) of \(\mathbb R\) is \(\mathbb R\)-minimal if and only if at least one of the following condition is satisfied. {\parindent6mm \begin{itemize}\item[(1)] \(A\) is a compact subset; \item[(2)] \(A\) is open in \(\mathbb R\); \item[(3)] \(A\) has the form \([a,b), (a,b], [a,+\infty), (-\infty,b];\) \item[(4)] All the components of \(A\) are nontrivial (i.e., \(A=\bigcup\{M\mid M\in \Gamma_A\}\)); the set \(\bigcup\{\mathrm{cl}M_{\mathbb R^*}\mid M\in \Gamma_A\}\) is compact; and for any component \(M\) of \(A\), a point \(a\in \mathrm{Fr}M\) belongs to \(M\) if and only if every neighborhood \(O_a\) of \(a\) contains infinitely many components of \(A\). \end{itemize}}