What is a first countable space? (Q860475)

Without the axiom of choice (AC), many familiar and elementary theorems of general topology no longer hold. As might be expected, interesting new examples continue to appear regularly. There is a comprehensive (for 1998) reference for AC and its weakenings, a great many of them topological, where the axioms mentioned below can be studied: [\textit{P. Howard} and \textit{J. E. Rubin,} Consequences of the axiom of choice. Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 59. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (1998; Zbl 0947.03001)]. The article under review shows how first countability of a topological space \(X\) can have three different interpretations in the absence of AC. One is the usual one: every point of \(X\) has a countable neighborhood base. This is expressed by saying that \(X\) satisfies A. To say that \(X\) satisfies B is to say that there is a function with domain \(X\) that sends each point \(x\) to a countable local base at \(x\); while \(X\) satisfies C if there is a function \(f\) with domain \(\mathbb N \times X\) such that \(\{B(n, x) : n \in \mathbb N\}\) is a local base at \(x\). Clearly, these are in order of increasing strength, but every metric or second countable space satisfies all three even in the absence of AC. It is shown that the axiom of Multiple Choice restricted to families of countable sets, denoted \(\text{MC}(\aleph_0)\), is implied by the statement that a space satisfies C if (and only if) it satisfies B, and this statement in turn is implied by \(\text{AC}(\aleph_0)\) in conjunction with \(\text{AC}(\mathbb R)\), and also by \(\text{MC}(2^{\aleph_0})\). Another axiom, \(\text{MC}_\omega\), is shown to imply the statement that \(X\) satisfies B if (and only if) it satisfies A, but neither the author nor this reviewer knows whether ZF is already adequate for implying this statement. In the third and fourth sections, six more conditions equivalent to first countability are introduced and their relationships with each other and with A, B, and C under various systems between ZF and ZFC, inclusive, are studied. To take just one example: if one assumes just ZF, then AC is equivalent to the statement that a topological space \(X\) satisfies C (if and) only if \(X\) satisfies I, meaning that for each function assigning a countable local base \(\mathcal V(x)\) to each point \(x\), there is a function as in ``\(X\) satisfies C'' such that \(B(n, x) \in \mathcal V(x)\). This equivalence continues to hold even if \(X\) is assumed to be a metric space or a second countable space.