k-SCATTERED SPACES

TARAS BANAKH
arXiv:1904.08969v1 [math.GN] 18 Apr 2019

Abstract. A topological space X is called k-scattered if each compact subspace of X has an

isolated point. We prove that (i) a Čech-complete space is k-scattered if and only if it is scattered
and (ii) a K-analytic space X is k-scattered if and only if any metrizable continuous image of
X is at most countable.

A topological space X is scattered if every non-empty subspace of X contains an isolated point.

Definition 1. A topological space X to be k-scattered if every compact subspace of X is scattered.
It is clear that a compact space is scattered if and only if it is k-scattered. This (trivial)
characterization extends (non-trivially) to Čech-complete spaces.
By a Čech-complete space we understand a Tychonoff space that is a Gδ -set in some (equiv-
alently, any) compactification, see [8, 3.9.1]. A topological space is Polish if it is homeomorphic
to a separable complete metric space. It is well-known [8, 4.3.26] that each Polish space is Čech-
complete.
Theorem 1. A Čech-complete space X is scattered if and only if it is k-scattered.
Proof. The “only if” part is trivial. Assuming that X is not scattered, we can find a subset
A ⊂ X without isolated points. Let X̄ be anyTcompactification of X and (Wn )n∈ω be a decreasing
sequence of open sets in X̄ such that X = n∈ω Wn . By induction for every n ∈ ω and every
binary sequence s ∈ 2n = {0, 1}n we can choose an open subset Us in X̄ such that the following
conditions are satisfied:
• Us ∩ A 6= ∅;
• U sˆ0 ∩ U sˆ1 = ∅;
• U sˆ0 ∪ U sˆ1 ⊂ Us ∩ Wn .
T S T
Then K = n∈ω s∈2n U s ⊂ n∈ω Wn = X is a compact subset of X having no isolated points,
which means that X is not k-scattered. 

The following characterization of scattered compact Hausdorff spaces is well-known and can be
found, e.g. in Theorem 20 [1, §3] or [13, 8.5.4].
Theorem 2. For a compact Hausdorff space X the following conditions are equivalent:
(1) X is not scattered;
(2) there exists a surjective continuous map f : X → [0, 1].
The implication (1) ⇒ (2) in Theorem 2 still holds for any Čech-complete space.
Proposition 1. Any non-scattered Čech-complete space X admits a surjective continuous map
f : X → [0, 1].
Proof. By Theorem 1, the non-scattered Čech-complete space X contains a non-scattered compact
subspace K ⊂ X. By Theorem 2, the compact space K admits a continuous map ϕ : K → [0, 1].
By the Tietze-Urysohn Theorem [8, 2.1.8], the map f admits a continuous extension ϕ̄ : βX →
[0, 1] to the Stone-Čech compactification βX of X. Then f = ϕ̄↾X is the required surjective
continuous map of X onto [0, 1]. 

Key words and phrases. scattered space, Čech-complete space, k-scattered space, K-analytic space.
1
2 TARAS BANAKH

Taking any bijective map f : D → [0, 1] from a discrete (and hence scattered) topological space
D onto [0, 1] we see that the implication (2) ⇒ (1) of Theorem 2 does not extend to Čech-complete
spaces. Nonetheless, it is true for Lindelöf Čech-complete spaces.
Let us recall that a topological space X is Lindelöf if every open cover of X contains a countable
subcover.
A regular topological space X is defined to be
• analytic if X is a continuous image of a Polish space;
• K-analytic if X is a continuous image of a Lindelöf Čech-complete space.
Analytic and K-analytic spaces play an important role in Descriptive Set Theory [10] and Func-
tional Analysis [9].
The following theorem characterizing k-scattered K-analytic spaces is the main result of this
paper. It has a technical proof, which will be presented in Section 2. This theorem has been
applied in [7] for studying the Baire category properties of some function spaces on K-analytic
spaces.
Theorem 3. For a K-analytic space X the following conditions are equivalent:
(1) X is k-scattered;
(2) for any continuous map f : X → Y to a metrizable space Y the image f (X) is at most
countable;
(3) no continuous map f : X → [0, 1] is surjective.
Theorems 1 and 3 imply
Corollary 1. For any continuous map f : X → Y from a scattered Lindelöf Čech-complete space
X to a metrizable space Y the image f (X) is at most countable.

1. Preliminaries
In this section we collect some results of Descriptive Set Theory that will be used in the proof
of Theorem 3.
First, we recall the standard definition of K-analytic spaces as images of Polish spaces under
unco maps.
A multi-valued function Φ : X ⊸ Y between sets is a function assigningS to each point x ∈ X a
(possibly empty) subset Φ(x) of Y . For a subset A ⊂ X we put Φ[A] = x∈X Φ(x).
A multi-valued function Φ : X ⊸ Y between topological spaces is defined to be
• compact-valued if for every x ∈ X the subset Φ(x) of Y is compact;
• upper semi-continuous if for any open set U ⊂ Y the set {x ∈ X : Φ(x) ⊂ U } is open;
• an usco map if Φ is upper semi-continuous and compact-valued.
The following folklore result (cf. [2, p.37]) shows that our definition of K-analytic spaces is
equivalent to the standard one.
Lemma 1. For a regular topological space X the following conditions are equivalent:
(1) X is a continuous image of a Lindelöf Čech-complete space;
(2) there exists an usco map Φ : P → X from a Polish space P such that X = Φ[P ].
The following simple lemma can be found in [12, 2.7.2].
Lemma 2. For any usco map Φ : X ⊸ Y from a compact space X to a topological space Y the
image Φ[X] is compact.
The following lemma also is well-known, see Theorem in [11, §36.V].
Lemma 3. Let f : X → Y be a continuous map from a Polish space X to a regular space Y .
If f (Y ) is uncountable, then there exists an uncountable compact subset K ⊂ X such that the
restriction f ↾K is injective.
A function f : X → Y between topological spaces is called Borel if for any Borel set B ⊂ Y the
preimage f −1 (B) is a Borel subset of X. The following lemma can be found in [10, 15.1]
 k-SCATTERED SPACES 3

Lemma 4 (Lusin-Souslin). Let f : X → Y be a continuous map between Polish spaces and B ⊂ X

is a Borel subset such that f ↾B is injective. Then the image f (B) is a Borel subset of Y and the
function f −1 : f (B) → B is Borel.
Our next lemma can be found in [10, 13.5].
Lemma 5. For any Borel function f : B → Y from a Borel subset B ⊂ X of a Polish space X
to a Polish space Y , there exists a continuous bijective function g : P → B from a Polish space P
such that the composition f ◦ g : P → Y is continuous.
Our final auxiliary result is due to Lusin and Novikov, see [10, 18.10].
Lemma 6 (Lusin-Novikov). Let X, Y be Polish spaces and B ⊂ X × Y be a BorelSsubset such
that for every x ∈ X the section B ∩ ({x} × Y ) is at most countable. Then B = n∈ω Bn for
some sequence (Bn )n∈ω of Borel subsets of X × Y such that for every n ∈ ω and x ∈ X the set
Bn ∩ ({x} × Y ) contains at most one point.

2. Proof of Theorem 3
Given a K-analytic space space X, we need to prove the equivalence of the conditions:
(1) X is k-scattered;
(2) for any continuous map f : X → Y to a metrizable space Y the image f (X) is at most
countable;
(3) no continuous map f : X → [0, 1] is surjective.
(1) ⇒ (2) To derive a contradiction, assume that the K-analytic space X is k-scattered but
admits a continuous map f : X → Y to a metrizable space Y whose image f (X) is uncountable.
Being K-analytic, the space X is Lindelöf and so is its image f (X). Being metrizable, the Lindelöf
space f (X) is separable and so is its closure in Y . So, we lose no generality assuming that the
space Y is Polish.
By Lemma 1, the K-analytic space X is the image of a Polish space P under an usco map
Φ : P ⊸ X. Since X is k-scattered, for every x ∈ X the compact subset Φ(x) is scattered.
Consider the usco map Ψ = f ◦ Φ : P → Y and observe that for every x ∈ P the compact set
Ψ(x) = f (Φ(x)) ⊂ Y is scattered and hence countable. The upper semicontinuity of Ψ implies
its graph Γ = {(x, y) ∈ P × Y : y ∈ Ψ(x)} is a closed subset of P × Y . By Lemma 6 and 4,
that S
Γ = n∈ω Γn for some Borel subsets Γn which are graphs of some Borel functions S fn : dom(fn ) →
Y defined on certain Borel subsets dom(fn ) ⊂ P . Since f (X) = Ψ[X] = n∈ω fn (dom(fn )) is
uncountable, for some n ∈ ω the subset fn (dom(fn )) of Y is uncountable. By Lemma 5, for
the (uncountable) Borel set dom(fn ) there exists a bijective continuous map ξ : D → dom(fn )
defined on a Polish space D such that the composition g = fn ◦ ξ : D → Y is continuous. Since
g(D) = fn (domn (fn )) is uncountable, we can apply Lemma 3 and find an uncountable compact
subset K ⊂ D such that g↾K is injective. Then ξ(K) ⊂ dom(fn ) is a compact subset of the
Polish space P whose image fn (ξ(K)) ⊂ Ψ[ξ(K)] is uncountable. On the other hand, the set
Φ[ξ(K)] ⊂ X is compact (by Lemma 2) and scattered by the k-scatteredness of X. Then its image
f (Φ[ξ(K)]) = Ψ[ξ(K)] ⊂ Y is scattered and hence is countable, which is not possible as Ψ[ξ(K)]
contains the uncountable set fn (ξ(K)) = g(K).
The implication (2) ⇒ (3) is trivial.
(3) ⇒ (1) Assume that X is not k-scattered, which means that X contains a non-scattered
compact subspace K. By Theorem 2, there exists a surjective continuous map f : X → [0, 1]. By
the Tietze-Urysohn Theorem [8, 2.1.8] (applied to the Stone-Čech compactification of X), f has
a continuous extension f¯ : X → [0, 1].

3. Some Open Problems

In this section we ask some intriguing open problems on k-scattered spaces.
A topological space X is Lindelöf if and only if l(X) ≤ ω where l(X) is the smallest cardinal κ
such that every open cover U of X contains a subcover V ⊂ U of cardinality |V| ≤ κ.
Corollary 1 suggests the following open problem posed also at MathOverflow [5].
4 TARAS BANAKH

Problem 1. Let f : X → R be a continuous function from a scattered Čech-complete space X. Is

|f (X)| ≤ l(X)?
Another intriguing problem [6] concerns the characterization of countable K-analytic spaces.
Problem 2. Is a K-analytic space X countable if every compact subset of X is countable?
The answer to this problem is affirmative under the set-theoretic assumption ω1 < b. We
recall [4], [14], [3] that b is the smallest cardinality of a subset A ⊂ ω ω that is not contained in a
σ-compact subset of ω ω . It is well-known [4], [14], [3] that ω1 < b = c under MA+¬CH.
Proposition 2. Under ω1 < b a K-analytic space X is countable if and only if every compact
subset of X is countable.
Proof. The “only if” part is trivial. To prove the “if” part, assume that every compact subset
of the K-analytic space X is countable. By Lemma 1, X = Φ[P ] for some compact-valued map
Φ : P → X defined on a Polish space P . Since each non-empty Polish space is a continuous image
of ω ω , we can assume that P = ω ω . Assuming that X is uncountable, we canSconstruct transfinite
sequences of points {xα }α<ω1 ⊂ ω ω and {yα }α∈ωω such that yα ∈ Φ(xα ) \ β<α Φ(xβ ) for every
α < ω1 .
By the definition of the cardinal b > ω1 , the set {xα }α<ω1 is contained in a σ-compact subset
of ω ω . Consequently, there exists a compact subset K ⊂ ω ω such that the intersection I =
K ∩{xα }α<ω1 is uncountable. By Lemma 2, the subset Φ[K] ⊂ X is compact andShence countable.
On the other hand, this countable set contains the uncountable set {yα }α∈I ⊂ α∈I Φ(xα ). This
contradiction witnesses that the space X is countable. 

4. Acknowlegement
The author would like to express this thanks to Saak Gabriyelyan whose stimulating questions
lead to the results presented in this paper.

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Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine) and Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce
(Poland)
E-mail address: t.o.banakh@gmail.com