On the existence of free topological groups

Topological methods for abelian groups (20K45) Structure of general topological groups (22A05) General properties and structure of LCA groups (22B05) Topological representations of algebraic systems (54H10)

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For a class U of topological groups (such as for instance the class consisting of the circle group), and for a space X which is homeomorphic to a subspace of a product of factors selected from U, the authors construct a topological group G containing a copy of X such that any continuous function \(f: X\to H\) for a U-group H (that is, a group isomorphic to a closed subgroup of a product of U-groups) has a unique extension to a continuous group homomorphism \(G_ U\to H\). If G is itself isomorphic to a closed subgroup of a product of U-groups, then they call G the free U-group \(G_ U\). (They offer a variation involving a second class V of topological groups for the picking of H. This gives the (U,V)-free groups.) The authors show that for the class U of pseudocompact groups, a free U- group exists if and only if X is empty. They then turn to the case \(U=\{{\mathbb{R}}/{\mathbb{Z}}\}\), that is, to the case of free compact abelian groups. In this case one obtains FX, the character group Hom(C(X,\({\mathbb{R}}/{\mathbb{Z}}),{\mathbb{R}}/{\mathbb{Z}})\). The authors call PX the subgroup of all characters with countable range and define the group \(\xi\) X as the subgroup generated in \(F\beta\) X by the set \(X\cup P\beta X\). This turns out to be a (PA,CA)-free group for the class of pseudocompact, respectively, compact abelian groups such that X is embedded as a closed subspace. The authors construct other groups \(\eta\) X for certain spaces with properties very similar to those of \(\xi\) X but which allows no nonconstant continuous homomorphism \(\xi\) \(X\to \eta X\). The paper concludes with a list of unsolved problems.

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