In topology and related fields of mathematics, a sequential space is a topological space whose topology can be completely characterized by its convergent/divergent sequences. They can be thought of as spaces that satisfy a very weak axiom of countability, and all first-countable spaces (notably metric spaces) are sequential.

In any topological space if a convergent sequence is contained in a closed set then the limit of that sequence must be contained in as well. Sets with this property are known as sequentially closed. Sequential spaces are precisely those topological spaces for which sequentially closed sets are in fact closed. (These definitions can also be rephrased in terms of sequentially open sets; see below.) Said differently, any topology can be described in terms of nets (also known as Moore–Smith sequences), but those sequences may be "too long" (indexed by too large an ordinal) to compress into a sequence. Sequential spaces are those topological spaces for which nets of countable length (i.e., sequences) suffice to describe the topology.

Any topology can be refined (that is, made finer) to a sequential topology, called the sequential coreflection of

The related concepts of Fréchet–Urysohn spaces, T-sequential spaces, and -sequential spaces are also defined in terms of how a space's topology interacts with sequences, but have subtly different properties.

Sequential spaces and -sequential spaces were introduced by S. P. Franklin.[1]

History

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Although spaces satisfying such properties had implicitly been studied for several years, the first formal definition is due to S. P. Franklin in 1965. Franklin wanted to determine "the classes of topological spaces that can be specified completely by the knowledge of their convergent sequences", and began by investigating the first-countable spaces, for which it was already known that sequences sufficed. Franklin then arrived at the modern definition by abstracting the necessary properties of first-countable spaces.

Preliminary definitions

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Let   be a set and let   be a sequence in  ; that is, a family of elements of  , indexed by the natural numbers. In this article,   means that each element in the sequence   is an element of   and, if   is a map, then   For any index   the tail of   starting at   is the sequence   A sequence   is eventually in   if some tail of   satisfies  

Let   be a topology on   and   a sequence therein. The sequence   converges to a point   written   (when context allows,  ), if, for every neighborhood   of   eventually   is in     is then called a limit point of  

A function   between topological spaces is sequentially continuous if   implies  

Sequential closure/interior

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Let   be a topological space and let   be a subset. The topological closure (resp. topological interior) of   in   is denoted by   (resp.  ).

The sequential closure of   in   is the set which defines a map, the sequential closure operator, on the power set of   If necessary for clarity, this set may also be written   or   It is always the case that   but the reverse may fail.

The sequential interior of   in   is the set (the topological space again indicated with a subscript if necessary).

Sequential closure and interior satisfy many of the nice properties of topological closure and interior: for all subsets  

  •   and  ;
  •   and  ;
  •  ;
  •  ; and
  •  

That is, sequential closure is a preclosure operator. Unlike topological closure, sequential closure is not idempotent: the last containment may be strict. Thus sequential closure is not a (Kuratowski) closure operator.

Sequentially closed and open sets

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A set   is sequentially closed if  ; equivalently, for all   and   such that   we must have  [note 1]

A set   is defined to be sequentially open if its complement is sequentially closed. Equivalent conditions include:

  •   or
  • For all   and   such that   eventually   is in   (that is, there exists some integer   such that the tail  ).

A set   is a sequential neighborhood of a point   if it contains   in its sequential interior; sequential neighborhoods need not be sequentially open (see § T- and N-sequential spaces below).

It is possible for a subset of   to be sequentially open but not open. Similarly, it is possible for there to exist a sequentially closed subset that is not closed.

Sequential spaces and coreflection

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As discussed above, sequential closure is not in general idempotent, and so not the closure operator of a topology. One can obtain an idempotent sequential closure via transfinite iteration: for a successor ordinal   define (as usual) and, for a limit ordinal   define This process gives an ordinal-indexed increasing sequence of sets; as it turns out, that sequence always stabilizes by index   (the first uncountable ordinal). Conversely, the sequential order of   is the minimal ordinal at which, for any choice of   the above sequence will stabilize.[2]

The transfinite sequential closure of   is the terminal set in the above sequence:   The operator   is idempotent and thus a closure operator. In particular, it defines a topology, the sequential coreflection. In the sequential coreflection, every sequentially-closed set is closed (and every sequentially-open set is open).[3]

Sequential spaces

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A topological space   is sequential if it satisfies any of the following equivalent conditions:

  •   is its own sequential coreflection.[4]
  • Every sequentially open subset of   is open.
  • Every sequentially closed subset of   is closed.
  • For any subset   that is not closed in   there exists some[note 2]   and a sequence in   that converges to  [5]
  • (Universal Property) For every topological space   a map   is continuous if and only if it is sequentially continuous (if   then  ).[6]
  •   is the quotient of a first-countable space.
  •   is the quotient of a metric space.

By taking   and   to be the identity map on   in the universal property, it follows that the class of sequential spaces consists precisely of those spaces whose topological structure is determined by convergent sequences. If two topologies agree on convergent sequences, then they necessarily have the same sequential coreflection. Moreover, a function from   is sequentially continuous if and only if it is continuous on the sequential coreflection (that is, when pre-composed with  ).

T- and N-sequential spaces

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A T-sequential space is a topological space with sequential order 1, which is equivalent to any of the following conditions:[1]

  • The sequential closure (or interior) of every subset of   is sequentially closed (resp. open).
  •   or   are idempotent.
  •   or  
  • Any sequential neighborhood of   can be shrunk to a sequentially-open set that contains  ; formally, sequentially-open neighborhoods are a neighborhood basis for the sequential neighborhoods.
  • For any   and any sequential neighborhood   of   there exists a sequential neighborhood   of   such that, for every   the set   is a sequential neighborhood of  

Being a T-sequential space is incomparable with being a sequential space; there are sequential spaces that are not T-sequential and vice-versa. However, a topological space   is called a  -sequential (or neighborhood-sequential) if it is both sequential and T-sequential. An equivalent condition is that every sequential neighborhood contains an open (classical) neighborhood.[1]

Every first-countable space (and thus every metrizable space) is  -sequential. There exist topological vector spaces that are sequential but not  -sequential (and thus not T-sequential).[1]

Fréchet–Urysohn spaces

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A topological space   is called Fréchet–Urysohn if it satisfies any of the following equivalent conditions:

  •   is hereditarily sequential; that is, every topological subspace is sequential.
  • For every subset    
  • For any subset   that is not closed in   and every   there exists a sequence in   that converges to  

Fréchet–Urysohn spaces are also sometimes said to be "Fréchet," but should be confused with neither Fréchet spaces in functional analysis nor the T1 condition.

Examples and sufficient conditions

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Every CW-complex is sequential, as it can be considered as a quotient of a metric space.

The prime spectrum of a commutative Noetherian ring with the Zariski topology is sequential.[7]

Take the real line   and identify the set   of integers to a point. As a quotient of a metric space, the result is sequential, but it is not first countable.

Every first-countable space is Fréchet–Urysohn and every Fréchet-Urysohn space is sequential. Thus every metrizable or pseudometrizable space — in particular, every second-countable space, metric space, or discrete space — is sequential.

Let   be a set of maps from Fréchet–Urysohn spaces to   Then the final topology that   induces on   is sequential.

A Hausdorff topological vector space is sequential if and only if there exists no strictly finer topology with the same convergent sequences.[8][9]

Spaces that are sequential but not Fréchet-Urysohn

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Schwartz space  and the space   of smooth functions, as discussed in the article on distributions, are both widely-used sequential spaces.[10][11]

More generally, every infinite-dimensional Montel DF-space is sequential but not Fréchet–Urysohn.

Arens' space is sequential, but not Fréchet–Urysohn.[12][13]

Non-examples (spaces that are not sequential)

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The simplest space that is not sequential is the cocountable topology on an uncountable set. Every convergent sequence in such a space is eventually constant; hence every set is sequentially open. But the cocountable topology is not discrete. (One could call the topology "sequentially discrete".)[14]

Let   denote the space of  -smooth test functions with its canonical topology and let   denote the space of distributions, the strong dual space of  ; neither are sequential (nor even an Ascoli space).[10][11] On the other hand, both   and   are Montel spaces[15] and, in the dual space of any Montel space, a sequence of continuous linear functionals converges in the strong dual topology if and only if it converges in the weak* topology (that is, converges pointwise).[10][16]

Consequences

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Every sequential space has countable tightness and is compactly generated.

If   is a continuous open surjection between two Hausdorff sequential spaces then the set   of points with unique preimage is closed. (By continuity, so is its preimage in   the set of all points on which   is injective.)

If   is a surjective map (not necessarily continuous) onto a Hausdorff sequential space   and   bases for the topology on   then   is an open map if and only if, for every   basic neighborhood   of   and sequence   in   there is a subsequence of   that is eventually in  

Categorical properties

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The full subcategory Seq of all sequential spaces is closed under the following operations in the category Top of topological spaces:

The category Seq is not closed under the following operations in Top:

  • Continuous images
  • Subspaces
  • Finite products

Since they are closed under topological sums and quotients, the sequential spaces form a coreflective subcategory of the category of topological spaces. In fact, they are the coreflective hull of metrizable spaces (that is, the smallest class of topological spaces closed under sums and quotients and containing the metrizable spaces).

The subcategory Seq is a Cartesian closed category with respect to its own product (not that of Top). The exponential objects are equipped with the (convergent sequence)-open topology.

P.I. Booth and A. Tillotson have shown that Seq is the smallest Cartesian closed subcategory of Top containing the underlying topological spaces of all metric spaces, CW-complexes, and differentiable manifolds and that is closed under colimits, quotients, and other "certain reasonable identities" that Norman Steenrod described as "convenient".[17]

Every sequential space is compactly generated, and finite products in Seq coincide with those for compactly generated spaces, since products in the category of compactly generated spaces preserve quotients of metric spaces.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ You cannot simultaneously apply this "test" to infinitely many subsets (for example, you can not use something akin to the axiom of choice). Not all sequential spaces are Fréchet-Urysohn, but only in those spaces can the closure of a set   can be determined without it ever being necessary to consider any set other than  
  2. ^ A Fréchet–Urysohn space is defined by the analogous condition for all such  :

    For any subset   that is not closed in   for any   there exists a sequence in   that converges to  

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d Snipes, Ray (1972). "T-sequential topological spaces" (PDF). Fundamenta Mathematicae. 77 (2): 95–98. doi:10.4064/fm-77-2-95-98. ISSN 0016-2736.
  2. ^ *Arhangel'skiĭ, A. V.; Franklin, S. P. (1968). "Ordinal invariants for topological spaces". Michigan Math. J. 15 (3): 313–320. doi:10.1307/mmj/1029000034.
  3. ^ Baron, S. (October 1968). "The Coreflective Subcategory of Sequential Spaces". Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. 11 (4): 603–604. doi:10.4153/CMB-1968-074-4. ISSN 0008-4395. S2CID 124685527.
  4. ^ "Topology of sequentially open sets is sequential?". Mathematics Stack Exchange.
  5. ^ Arkhangel'skii, A.V. and Pontryagin L.S.,  General Topology I, definition 9 p.12
  6. ^ Baron, S.; Leader, Solomon (1966). "Solution to Problem #5299". The American Mathematical Monthly. 73 (6): 677–678. doi:10.2307/2314834. ISSN 0002-9890. JSTOR 2314834.
  7. ^ "On sequential properties of Noetherian topological spaces" (PDF). 2004. Retrieved 30 Jul 2023.
  8. ^ Wilansky 2013, p. 224.
  9. ^ Dudley, R. M., On sequential convergence - Transactions of the American Mathematical Society Vol 112, 1964, pp. 483-507
  10. ^ a b c Gabrielyan, Saak (2019). "Topological properties of strict  -spaces and strong duals of Montel strict  -spaces". Monatshefte für Mathematik. 189 (1): 91–99. arXiv:1702.07867. doi:10.1007/s00605-018-1223-6.
  11. ^ a b T. Shirai, Sur les Topologies des Espaces de L. Schwartz, Proc. Japan Acad. 35 (1959), 31-36.
  12. ^ Engelking 1989, Example 1.6.19
  13. ^ Ma, Dan (19 August 2010). "A note about the Arens' space". Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  14. ^ math; Sleziak, Martin (Dec 6, 2016). "Example of different topologies with same convergent sequences". Mathematics Stack Exchange. StackOverflow. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
  15. ^ "Topological vector space". Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Retrieved September 6, 2020. It is a Montel space, hence paracompact, and so normal.
  16. ^ Trèves 2006, pp. 351–359.
  17. ^ Steenrod 1967

References

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