Every topological group is a group retract of a minimal group (Q952616)

In this paper, every topological group is a Hausdorff space. A topological group \((M,\mathcal T)\) is said to be minimal if \(M\) admits no (Hausdorff) group topology which is strictly weaker than \(\mathcal T\). (The concept was introduced independently by R.~M.~Stephenson, jun. [1971] and D.~Doïtchinov [1972].) With the following theorem, the author establishes a conjecture of V.~V.~Pestov [1983]: For every topological group \(G\) there exist a minimal topological group \(M\supseteq G\) and a continuous homomorphism \(h:M\twoheadrightarrow G\) such that \(h(x)=x\) for every \(x\in G\). It then follows in particular, answering questions of A.~V.~Arhangel\('\)skiĭ~[1987], that (a) every topological group is a quotient of a minimal topological group; and (b) every topological group embeds as a closed subgroup of a minimal topological group. The author's arguments show that passage from arbitrary \(G\) to minimal \(M\supseteq G\) need not alter weight, character or pseudocharacter. In particular, every metrizable topological group can be realized as a retract under a continuous homomorphism of a topological group which is both minimal and metrizable.