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Joel David Hamkins
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The answer is Yes.

Theorem. The following are equivalent for any Hausdorff space X.

  1. X is compact.

  2. Xκ is Lindelöf for any cardinal κ.

  3. Xω1 is Lindelöf.

Proof. The forward implications are easy, using Tychonoff for 1 implies 2, since if X is compact, then Xκ is compact and hence Lindelöf.

So suppose that we have a space X that is not compact, but Xω1 is Lindelöf. It follows that X is Lindelöf. Thus, there is a countable cover having no finite subcover. From this, we may construct a strictly increasing sequence of open sets U0 subset U1 subset ... Un ... with the union U{ Un | n in ω} = X.

For each J subset ω of size n, let UJ be the set {s in Xω1 | s(α) in Un for each α in J}. As the size of J increases, the set UJ allows more freedom on the coordinates in J, but restricts more coordinates. If J has size n, let us call UJ an open n-box, since it restricts the sequences on n coordinates. Let F be the family of all such UJ for all finite J subset ω1.

This F is a cover of Xω1. To see this, consider any point s in Xω1. For each α in ω1, there is some n with s(α) in Un. Since ω1 is uncountable, there must be some value of n that is repeated unboundedly often, in particular, some n occurs at least n times. Let J be the coordinates where this n appears. Thus, s is in UJ. So F is a cover.

Since Xω1 is Lindelöf, there must be a countable subcover F0. Let J* be the union of all the finite J that appear in the UJ in this subcover. So J* is a countable subset of ω1. Note that J* cannot be finite, since then the sizes of the J appearing in F0 would be bounded and it could not cover Xω1. We may rearrange indices and assume without loss of generality that J*=ω is the first ω many coordinates. So F0 is really a cover of Xω, by ignoring the other coordinates.

But this is impossible. Define a sequence s in Xω1 by choosing s(n) to be outside Un+1, and otherwise arbitrary. Note that s is in Un in fewer than n coordinates below ω, and so s is not in any n-box with J subset ω, since any such box has n values in Un. Thus, s is not in any set in F0, so it is not a cover. QED

In particular, to answer the question at the end, it suffices to take any uncountable kappa.

Joel David Hamkins
  • 236.4k
  • 44
  • 777
  • 1.4k