A Corson Compact Space is Countable if the Complement of its Diagonal is Functionally Countable

Abstract

A space X is called functionally countable if ƒ (X) is countable for any continuous function ƒ : X → Ø. Given an infinite cardinal k, we prove that a compact scattered space K with d(K) > k must have a convergent k+-sequence. This result implies that a Corson compact space K is countable if the space (K × K) \ ΔK is functionally countable; here ΔK = {(x, x): x ϵ K} is the diagonal of K. We also establish that, under Jensen’s Axiom ♦, there exists a compact hereditarily separable non-metrizable compact space X such that (X × X) \ ΔX is functionally countable and show in ZFC that there exists a non-separable σ-compact space X such that (X × X) \ ΔX is functionally countable.