t opol ogical spaces: some heavil y used invar iant s

5 t opol ogical spaces: some heavil y used invar iant s

5.1 Separation properties

D ef nition. A topological space (M , O) is said to be T if for any two distinct points

p, q M , p 6
= q:
U O : p U q U.
/

D ef nition. A topological space (M , O) is said to be T or Hausdorff if, for any two

distinct points, there exist non-intersecting open neighbourhoods of these two points:
p, q M : p 6
= q U(p), V(q) O : U(p) V(q) = .

Example . . T he topological space (R d , Ostd) is T and hence also T .

Example . . T he Z ariski topology on an algebraicvariety is T but not T .

Example . . T hetopological space(M , {, M }) does not havetheT property sincefor

any p M , the only open neighbourhood of p is M and for any other q =
6 p we have
q M . Moreover, since this space is not T , it cannot be T either.

Remark . . T here are many other T properties, including a T property which

differs from T in that the neighbourhoods are closed.

5.2 Compactness and paracompactness

D ef nition. L et (M , O) be a topological space. A set C P(M ) is called a cover (of M )
if:
[
C =M.
Additionally, it is said to an open cover if C O.
e C such that C
e is still a cover, is
D ef nition. L et C be a cover. T hen any subset C
called a subcover. Additionally, it is said to be a f nitesubcover if it is f nite as a set.
D ef nition. A topological space (M , O) is said to be compact if ever y open cover has a
f nite subcover.
D ef nition. L et (M , O) be a topological space. A subset N M is called compact if the
topological space (N, O|N ) is compact.
Deter mining whether a set is compact or not is not an easy task. Fortunately though,
for R d equipped with the standard topology Ostd, the following theorem greatly simplif es matters.

T heorem . (H eine-Borel). Let R d beequipped with thestandard topology Ostd. T hen, a

subset of R d is compact if, andonly if, it is closedandbounded.

35