On starshapedness in products of interval spaces (Q1805507)

In the context of abstract convexity the author investigates products of interval spaces with regard to the notion of starshapedness. An interval space is a set \(X\) endowed with an interval operator \(I : X^2 \to 2^X\) such that for all \(a,b \in X\) \(I(a,a) = \{a\}\), \(a,b \in I (a,b) = I(b,a)\), and if \(c \in I(a,b)\) then \(I(a,c) \subseteq I(a,b)\). The operator \(I\) defines a convexity structure on \(X\), where \(I(a,b)\) is the segment between \(a\) and \(b\). The Krasnosel'skii number \(k(X)\) of an interval space \((X,I)\), endowed with a topology, is the smallest nonnegative integer \(k\) (if such exists) with the property: any compact set \(S \subset X\) is starshaped provided for every \(k\) points \(x_1, \ldots, x_k\) of \(S\) there exists a point \(p \in S\) such that all the segments \(I(p,x_i)\) are contained in \(S\). For any subset \(S\) of \(X\) let \(\text{Kern } S\) be the set of points with respect to which \(S\) is a starshaped set and for \(q \in S\) let \(St (q,S)\) be the set of all points \(x \in S\) such that \(I(q,x) \subset S\). The set \(S\) is said to be a \(K\)-set if \[ \text{Kern} S = \cap \{\text{conv} St (p,S);\;p \in S\}. \] An interval space is said to be a \(K\)-space if any compact subset of \(X\) is a \(K\)-set. In this paper it is first shown that the Cartesian product \((X,I)\) of \(K\)-spaces \((X_i, I_i)\) is again a \(K\)-space. Moreover, under some compactness assumption on \(X\) it is proved that the Krasnosel'skii number \(k(X)\) of \(X\) does not exceed the Helly number of \(X\). It is also observed that \(k(X)\) may arbitrarily exceed the Krasnosel'skii number of the factors, differently from the Helly number.