This is a glossary of some terms used in the branch of mathematics known as topology. Although there is no absolute distinction between different areas of topology, the focus here is on general topology. The following definitions are also fundamental to algebraic topology, differential topology and geometric topology.
In mathematics, a paracompact space is a topological space in which every open cover has an open refinement that is locally finite. These spaces were introduced by Dieudonné (1944). Every compact space is paracompact. Every paracompact Hausdorff space is normal, and a Hausdorff space is paracompact if and only if it admits partitions of unity subordinate to any open cover. Sometimes paracompact spaces are defined so as to always be Hausdorff.
The Baire category theorem (BCT) is an important result in general topology and functional analysis. The theorem has two forms, each of which gives sufficient conditions for a topological space to be a Baire space. It is used in the proof of results in many areas of analysis and geometry, including some of the fundamental theorems of functional analysis.
In mathematics, a base (or basis; pl.: bases) for the topology τ of a topological space (X, τ) is a family of open subsets of X such that every open set of the topology is equal to the union of some sub-family of . For example, the set of all open intervals in the real number line is a basis for the Euclidean topology on because every open interval is an open set, and also every open subset of can be written as a union of some family of open intervals.
In mathematics, and more particularly in set theory, a cover of a set is a family of subsets of whose union is all of . More formally, if is an indexed family of subsets , then is a cover of if . Thus the collection is a cover of if each element of belongs to at least one of the subsets .
In general topology, a branch of mathematics, a non-empty family A of subsets of a set is said to have the finite intersection property (FIP) if the intersection over any finite subcollection of is non-empty. It has the strong finite intersection property (SFIP) if the intersection over any finite subcollection of is infinite. Sets with the finite intersection property are also called centered systems and filter subbases.
In topology, a subbase for a topological space with topology is a subcollection of that generates in the sense that is the smallest topology containing as open sets. A slightly different definition is used by some authors, and there are other useful equivalent formulations of the definition; these are discussed below.
In functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, locally convex topological vector spaces (LCTVS) or locally convex spaces are examples of topological vector spaces (TVS) that generalize normed spaces. They can be defined as topological vector spaces whose topology is generated by translations of balanced, absorbent, convex sets. Alternatively they can be defined as a vector space with a family of seminorms, and a topology can be defined in terms of that family. Although in general such spaces are not necessarily normable, the existence of a convex local base for the zero vector is strong enough for the Hahn–Banach theorem to hold, yielding a sufficiently rich theory of continuous linear functionals.
In topology, a second-countable space, also called a completely separable space, is a topological space whose topology has a countable base. More explicitly, a topological space is second-countable if there exists some countable collection of open subsets of such that any open subset of can be written as a union of elements of some subfamily of . A second-countable space is said to satisfy the second axiom of countability. Like other countability axioms, the property of being second-countable restricts the number of open sets that a space can have.
In mathematics, specifically in the study of topology and open covers of a topological space X, a star refinement is a particular kind of refinement of an open cover of X. A related concept is the notion of barycentric refinement.
In topology and related areas of mathematics, a topological property or topological invariant is a property of a topological space that is invariant under homeomorphisms. Alternatively, a topological property is a proper class of topological spaces which is closed under homeomorphisms. That is, a property of spaces is a topological property if whenever a space X possesses that property every space homeomorphic to X possesses that property. Informally, a topological property is a property of the space that can be expressed using open sets.
In topology and related branches of mathematics, total-boundedness is a generalization of compactness for circumstances in which a set is not necessarily closed. A totally bounded set can be covered by finitely many subsets of every fixed “size”.
In topology and related areas of mathematics, the neighbourhood system, complete system of neighbourhoods, or neighbourhood filter for a point in a topological space is the collection of all neighbourhoods of
In the mathematical field of general topology, a topological space is said to be metacompact if every open cover has a point-finite open refinement. That is, given any open cover of the topological space, there is a refinement that is again an open cover with the property that every point is contained only in finitely many sets of the refining cover.
In mathematics, in the field of general topology, a topological space is said to be orthocompact if every open cover has an interior-preserving open refinement. That is, given an open cover of the topological space, there is a refinement that is also an open cover, with the further property that at any point, the intersection of all open sets in the refinement containing that point is also open.
In topology and other branches of mathematics, a topological space X is locally connected if every point admits a neighbourhood basis consisting of open connected sets.
In mathematics a topological space is called countably compact if every countable open cover has a finite subcover.
A collection of subsets of a topological space is said to be locally finite if each point in the space has a neighbourhood that intersects only finitely many of the sets in the collection.
In topology and related areas of mathematics, a subset A of a topological space X is said to be dense in X if every point of X either belongs to A or else is arbitrarily "close" to a member of A — for instance, the rational numbers are a dense subset of the real numbers because every real number either is a rational number or has a rational number arbitrarily close to it. Formally, is dense in if the smallest closed subset of containing is itself.
