Bruijning-Nagata and Hashimoto-Hattori characteristics of covering dimension revisited (Q881001)

The functions \(\Delta_k(X)\) and \(\ast_k(X)\) for a topological space \(X\) and \(k\in{\mathbb N}\) were introduced by Bruijning and Nagata, respectively. They proved that for every infinite normal space \(X\) with \(\dim X=n\) and every \(k\in{\mathbb N}\), \(\Delta_k(X)=2^k-1\) if \(k\leq n+1\); \(\Delta_k(X)=\sum_{m=1}^{n+1}C^m_k\) if \(k\geq n+1\). By use of this equation, they gave a characterization of the covering dimension for an infinite normal space \(X\) such as \(\dim X=\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{\log\Delta_k(X)}{\log k}-1\). Furthermore, Hashimoto and Hattori obtained similar equations for \(\ast_k(X)\): if \(X\) is an infinite normal space with \(\dim X=n\), then \(\ast_k(X)=k\cdot2^{k-1}\) if \(k\leq n+1\); \(\ast_k(X)=\sum_{m=1}^{n+1}mC^m_k\) if \(k\geq n+1\), and for every infinite normal space \(X\) it holds that \(\dim X=\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{\log\ast_k(X)}{\log k}-1\). In this paper, the authors define new dimension functions \(\Delta_k^l(X)\) and \(\ast_k^l(X)\) for a topological space \(X\) and \(k,l\in{\mathbb N}\). As main results, they obtain the following equations including the above formulas: if \(X\) is an infinite normal space with \(\dim X=n\), then \(\Delta_k^l(X)=(l+1)^k-l^k\) if \(k\leq n+1\); \(\Delta_k^l(X)=\sum_{m=1}^{n+1}(l^m-(l-1)^m)C^m_k\) if \(k\geq n+1\) and \(\ast_k^l(X)=k\cdot(l+1)^{k-1}\) if \(k\leq n+1\); \(\ast_k^l(X)=\sum_{m+1}^{n+1}ml^{m-1}C^m_k\) if \(k\geq n+1\), and for every infinite normal space \(X\) and \(l\in{\mathbb N}\) \(\dim X=\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{\log\Delta^l_k(X)}{\log k}-1 =\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{\log\ast^l_k(X)}{\log k}-1\).