Strong \(\gamma\)-sets and other singular spaces (Q817627)

\textit{M. Scheepers} [Topology Appl. 69, 31--62 (1996; Zbl 0848.54018)] unified the study of covering properties that have since then come to be called selection principles: The most basic such properties studied are of the form \(S_1({\mathcal A},{\mathcal B})\) where \(\mathcal A\) and \(\mathcal B\) are classes of open covers. This principle asserts that for every sequence \(\{{\mathcal U}_n:n\in \omega\}\) of covers from the class \(\mathcal A\), one may select \(U_n\) from \({\mathcal U}_n\) such that \(\{U_n:n\in \omega\}\) is from \(\mathcal B\). Here \(\mathcal A\) and \(\mathcal B\) are typically the classes of open covers, large covers, \(\omega\)-covers, or \(\gamma\)-covers or the class of \(n\)-covers: \({\mathcal U}\) is an \(n\)-cover if every \(n\)-element set is included in some member of \({\mathcal U}\). Other selection principles are of the form \(S_{\text{fin}}({\mathcal A},{\mathcal B})\), \(U_{\text{fin}}({\mathcal A}, {\mathcal B})\) and more recently many others. In this paper, the author considers a more general class of selection principles where each element of the sequence of open covers \({\mathcal U}_n\) may be taken from different classes. E.g. for a sequence of natural numbers \(\{k_n:n\in\omega\}\), \(S_1(\{{\mathcal O}\}_{k_n},\Gamma)\) states that for every sequence of \(\{{\mathcal U}_n:n\in \omega\}\) where each \({\mathcal U}_n\) is an open \(k_n\)-cover, there is \(U_n\in {\mathcal U}_n\) such that \(\{U_n:n\in \omega\}\) is a \(\gamma\)-cover. This covering property was previously studied by Galvin and Miller who defined a space \(X\) to have the strong \(\gamma\)-property if there is an increasing sequence \((k_n:n\in\omega)\) such that \(X\) satisfies \(S_1(\{{\mathcal O}_{k_n}\},\Gamma)\). This can be compared to the classical \(\gamma\)-property of Gerlits and Nagy, \(S_1(\Omega,\Gamma)\). Galvin and Miller showed that the strong \(\gamma\)-property is consistently stronger than the \(\gamma\)-property. There are a number of classical selection principles that admit natural strengthenings analogous to the Galvin-Miller strengthening of the \(\gamma\)-property. In this paper, the author considers systematically all such known properties and shows that, unlike the \(\gamma\)-property, most of the natural strengthenings are in fact equivalent to the original property. This includes the properties of Rothberger, Menger, Arhangel'skii, Sakai, Hurewicz, and others. Answering a question of Iliades, the author also proves that of all the ``new'' selection principles of the form \(S_1(\{{\mathcal A}_n\}_{n\in \omega},{\mathcal B})\), \(S_{\text{fin}}(\{{\mathcal A}_n\}_{n\in\omega},{\mathcal B})\), or \(U_{\text{fin}}(\{{\mathcal A}_n\}_{n\in\omega},{\mathcal B})\) where the \({\mathcal A}_n\) and \({\mathcal B}\) are taken from the classes of open covers, large covers, \(\omega\)-covers, \(\gamma\)-covers, \(n\)-covers, \(\tau\)-covers, \(\tau^*\)-covers, only the strong \(\gamma\)-property and, it is conjectured, the property \(S_1(\{{\mathcal O}_n\}_{n\in {\mathbb N}},T)\) (\(T\) is the class of \(\tau\)-covers), do not reduce to one of the classical selection principles. The second section of this paper considers a number of natural topological games and new game-theoretic characterizations of many selection principles are established. Central to the analysis of these new selection principles, the notions of a family of open covers being finitely thick and countably thick are introduced and studied.