The Lawson number of a semitopological semilattice

Abstract

AbstractFor a Hausdorff topologized semilattice X its Lawson number$$\bar{\Lambda }(X)$$ Λ ¯ ( X ) is the smallest cardinal $$\kappa $$ κ such that for any distinct points $$x,y\in X$$ x , y ∈ X there exists a family $$\mathcal U$$ U of closed neighborhoods of x in X such that $$|\mathcal U|\le \kappa $$ | U | ≤ κ and $$\bigcap \mathcal U$$ ⋂ U is a subsemilattice of X that does not contain y. It follows that $$\bar{\Lambda }(X)\le \bar{\psi }(X)$$ Λ ¯ ( X ) ≤ ψ ¯ ( X ) , where $$\bar{\psi }(X)$$ ψ ¯ ( X ) is the smallest cardinal $$\kappa $$ κ such that for any point $$x\in X$$ x ∈ X there exists a family $$\mathcal U$$ U of closed neighborhoods of x in X such that $$|\mathcal U|\le \kappa $$ | U | ≤ κ and $$\bigcap \mathcal U=\{x\}$$ ⋂ U = { x } . We prove that a compact Hausdorff semitopological semilattice X is Lawson (i.e., has a base of the topology consisting of subsemilattices) if and only if $$\bar{\Lambda }(X)=1$$ Λ ¯ ( X ) = 1 . Each Hausdorff topological semilattice X has Lawson number $$\bar{\Lambda }(X)\le \omega $$ Λ ¯ ( X ) ≤ ω . On the other hand, for any infinite cardinal $$\lambda $$ λ we construct a Hausdorff zero-dimensional semitopological semilattice X such that $$|X|=\lambda $$ | X | = λ and $$\bar{\Lambda }(X)=\bar{\psi }(X)=\mathrm {cf}(\lambda )$$ Λ ¯ ( X ) = ψ ¯ ( X ) = cf ( λ ) . A topologized semilattice X is called (i) $$\omega $$ ω -Lawson if $$\bar{\Lambda }(X)\le \omega $$ Λ ¯ ( X ) ≤ ω ; (ii) complete if each non-empty chain $$C\subseteq X$$ C ⊆ X has $$\inf C\in {\overline{C}}$$ inf C ∈ C ¯ and $$\sup C\in {\overline{C}}$$ sup C ∈ C ¯ . We prove that for any complete subsemilattice X of an $$\omega $$ ω -Lawson semitopological semilattice Y, the partial order $$\le _X=\{(x,y)\in X\times X:xy=x\}$$ ≤ X = { ( x , y ) ∈ X × X : x y = x } of X is closed in $$Y\times Y$$ Y × Y and hence X is closed in Y. This implies that for any continuous homomorphism $$h:X\rightarrow Y$$ h : X → Y from a complete topologized semilattice X to an $$\omega $$ ω -Lawson semitopological semilattice Y the image h(X) is closed in Y.