Wednesday, 9 June 2010

gn.general topology - What is an explicit example of a sequence converging to two different points?

Here are two relevant facts:



1) In a Hausdorff space, a sequence converges to at most one point.



2) A first-countable space in which each sequence converges to at most one point is Hausdorff.



See e.g. pages 4 to 5 of



http://math.uga.edu/~pete/convergence.pdf



for the (easy) proofs of these facts, together with the definition of first-countable. See p. 6 for an example showing that 2) does not hold with the hypothesis of first-countability dropped.



It seems like a worthwhile exercise to use 2) to find spaces that have the property you want. For instance, the cofinite topology on a countably infinite set is first-countable and not Hausdorff, so there must be non-uniquely convergent sequences.



Addendum: Here are some further simple considerations which unify some of the other examples given.



For a topological space $X$, consider the specialization relation: a point $x$ specializes to the point $y$ if $y$ lies in the closure of ${x}$. This implies that any sequence which converges to $x$ also converges to $y$. (If in the previous sentence we replace "sequence" by "net", we get a characterization of the specialization relation.) The specialization relation is always reflexive and transitive, so is a quasi-order.



Note that a topological space is T_1, or separated, iff the specalization relation is simply equality. Thus in a space which is not separated, there exist distinct points $x$ and $y$ such that every net which converges to $x$ also converges to $y$. If $X$ is first countable, we may replace "net" by "sequence".



A topological space $X$ satisfies the T_0 separation axiom, or is a Kolmogorov space, if for any distinct points $x,y in X$, there is an open set containing exactly one of $x$ and $y$. A space is Kolmogorov iff the specalization relation is anti-symmetric, i.e., is a partial ordering. Thus in a non-Kolmogorov space, there exist distinct points $x$ and $y$ such that a net converges to $x$ iff it converges to $Y$. (If $X$ is first countable...)



An example of a first countable non-Kolmogorov space is a pseudo-metric space which is not a metric space (a pseudo-metric is like a metric except $rho(x,y) = 0 iff x = y$ is weakened to $rho(x,x) = 0$). In particular, the topology defined by a semi-norm which is not a norm always gives such examples.

No comments:

Post a Comment