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Added remarks and problems
Taras Banakh
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Is each Parovichenko compact space homeomorphic to the remainder of a soft compactification of $\mathbb N$?

Definition 1. A compactification $c\mathbb N$ of the discrete space $\mathbb N$ is called soft if for any disjoint sets $A,B\subset\mathbb N$ with $\bar A\cap\bar B\ne\emptyset$ there exists a homeomorphism $h:c\mathbb N\to c\mathbb N$ such that $h(x)=x$ for all $x\in c\mathbb N\setminus\mathbb N$ and the set $\{x\in A:h(x)\in B\}$ is infinite.

Definition 2. A compact Hausdorff space $X$ is called Parovichenko (resp. soft Parovichenko) if $X$ is homeomorphic to the remainder $c\mathbb N\setminus\mathbb N$ of some (soft) compactification $c\mathbb N$ of $\mathbb N$?

Remark 1. By a classical Parovichenko Theorem, each compact Hausdorff space of weight $\le\aleph_1$ is Parovichenko. Hence, under CH a compact Hausdorff space is Parovichenko if and only if it has weight $\le\mathfrak c$. By a result of Przymusinski, each perfectly normal compact space is Parovichenko. On the other hand, Bell constructed an consistent example of a first-countable compact Hausdorff space, which is not Parovichenko. More information and references on Parovichenko spaces can be found in this survey of Hart and van Mill (see $\S$3.10),

Problem 1. Is each Parovichenko compact space soft Parovichenko?

Remark 2. The Stone-Cech compactification $\beta\mathbb N$ of $\mathbb N$ is soft, but there are simple examples of compactifications which are not soft. A compactification $c\mathbb N$ of $\mathbb N$ is soft if for any disjoint sets $A,B\subset\mathbb N$ with $\bar A\cap\bar B\ne\emptyset$ there are sequences $\{a_n\}_{n\in\omega}\subset A$ and $\{b_n\}_{n\in\omega}\subset B$ that converge to the same point $x\in\bar A\cap\bar B$. This implies that a compactification $c\mathbb N$ is soft if the space $c\mathbb N$ is Frechet-Urysohn or has sequential square. This also implies that each first-countable Parovichenko space is soft Parovichenko.

Problem 2. Is each (Frechet-Urysohn) sequential Parovichenko space soft Parovichenko?

The following concrete version of Problem 1 describes an example of a Parovichenko space for which we do not know if it is soft Parovichenko.

Problem 3. Let $X$ be a compact space that can be written as the union $X=A\cup B$ where $A$ is homeomorphic to $\beta\mathbb N\setminus\mathbb N$, $B$ is homeomorphic to the Cantor cube $\{0,1\}^\omega$ and $A\cap B\ne\emptyset$. Is the space $X$ soft Parovichenko?

Taras Banakh
  • 41.8k
  • 3
  • 74
  • 183