Obtainable sizes of topologies on finite sets (Q966058)

The authors study the smallest possible number of points in a topological space having \(k\) open sets. Equivalently, this is the smallest possible number of elements in a poset having \(k\) order ideals. Let us cite a typical result: For an integer \(k\geq 2,\) let \(m(k)\) be the smallest positive integer such that there exists a topology on \(m(k)\) points having \(k\) open sets. Then for all \(k\geq 2,\) \(m(k)\leq (4/3)\lfloor \log_2k\rfloor+2.\) As a corollary of their investigations they obtain that \(T(n,k)>0\) for all \(k\in [2,2^{3(n-2)/4}].\) Here \(T(n,k)\) denotes the number of topologies on \(n\) points having \(k\) open sets. The construction algorithms can be modified to produce, for instance, topologies where the smallest neighborhorhood of each point has a minimal size.