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A space is regular if and only if every point has a neighbourhood base of closed neighbourhoods, if and only if open gives an open with
Statement
Let be a topological space (Topology on a set, open and closed sets, clopen sets, the closed-set axiomatisation, and the coarser/finer comparison), with closures as in Interior, closure, boundary, exterior, derived set and isolated point in a topological space and neighbourhoods as in Neighbourhood of a point and neighbourhood base, with this library's convention that a neighbourhood need not be open, so that a neighbourhood need not be open. The following three conditions are equivalent.
- (a) is regular (Regular spaces and spaces, with the source disagreement over whether regularity includes stated explicitly).
- (b) For every and every open with there is an open with
- (c) Every point of has a neighbourhood base consisting of closed neighbourhoods: for every and every neighbourhood of there is a closed neighbourhood of with .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A topological space , a point , an open set with , a neighbourhood of , and a closed set with .
is regular when for every closed and every there are disjoint open and (Regular spaces and spaces, with the source disagreement over whether regularity includes stated explicitly).
is a neighbourhood of exactly when some open satisfies ; a set is open exactly when it is a neighbourhood of each of its points (Neighbourhood of a point and neighbourhood base, with this library's convention that a neighbourhood need not be open).
is the smallest closed superset of : it is closed, contains , and is contained in every closed set containing (A point lies in the closure of iff every basic neighbourhood of it meets ; the closure is the smallest closed superset and equals together with its derived set, claim 2, Interior, closure, boundary, exterior, derived set and isolated point in a topological space).
is the largest open subset of , and exactly when is a neighbourhood of (Interior, closure, boundary, exterior, derived set and isolated point in a topological space).
A set is closed exactly when its complement is open (Topology on a set, open and closed sets, clopen sets, the closed-set axiomatisation, and the coarser/finer comparison).
Proof
Assume (a) and let be open with ; then is closed by [L4] and , so [A1] gives disjoint open and .
Assume (b) and let be a neighbourhood of ; fix an open with by [L1], and let be as in (b), so .
Assume (c) and let be closed with ; then is open by [L4] and contains , hence is a neighbourhood of by [L1], so (c) gives a closed neighbourhood of with .
Under step 1.1: , since and are disjoint, and is closed by [L4], so by [L2]; and because .
Under step 1.2: is a closed set containing the open , so it is a neighbourhood of by [L1], and it is a closed neighbourhood of contained in .
Under step 1.3: put , which is open and contains by [L3] since is a neighbourhood of ; and put , which is open by [L4] since is closed.
Step 2.1 gives with open, so (a) implies (b).
Step 2.2 gives, for every neighbourhood of , a closed neighbourhood of inside , so (b) implies (c).
Under step 2.3: because by [L3], and because ; so and are disjoint open sets containing and respectively, and (c) implies (a).
By steps 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 the three conditions (a), (b) and (c) are equivalent.
Remarks
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Clause (b) is the working form. Every application of regularity below uses it in the shape "shrink an open set around a point so that even its closure stays inside", which is what makes regularity behave like a one-sided version of the normality shrinking lemma proved later on this page.
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Clause (c) is what makes a clopen basis decisive. If a space has a basis of clopen sets then the basic sets containing a point are closed neighbourhoods of it and form a neighbourhood base (Neighbourhood of a point and neighbourhood base, with this library's convention that a neighbourhood need not be open), so (c) holds and the space is regular with no further work. That is exactly the route by which the ordinal spaces later on this page are shown to be regular.
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No separation hypothesis is used anywhere above. Points need not be closed, and the lemma is a statement about regularity alone; combining it with is the separate step that produces .
Depends on
- Regular spaces and $T_3$ spaces, with the source disagreement over whether regularity includes $T_1$ stated explicitly
- Neighbourhood of a point and neighbourhood base, with this library's convention that a neighbourhood need not be open
- Interior, closure, boundary, exterior, derived set and isolated point in a topological space
- A point lies in the closure of $A$ iff every basic neighbourhood of it meets $A$; the closure is the smallest closed superset and equals $A$ together with its derived set
- Topology on a set, open and closed sets, clopen sets, the closed-set axiomatisation, and the coarser/finer comparison
Used by
- Arbitrary products of regular spaces are regular Lemma
- Every ordinal with its order topology has a basis of clopen sets, and is T₁, Hausdorff and regular Lemma
- Every regular Lindelöf space is normal Lemma
- Every Urysohn space is Hausdorff, every Hausdorff space is T₁ and hence T₀, and every regular T₁ space is Urysohn Lemma
- In a locally compact Hausdorff space every open set containing a point contains an open set containing it whose closure is compact and still inside; such a space is regular Lemma
- Regularity is hereditary, without a hidden T₁ hypothesis Lemma
- The lower-limit line has a clopen basis, is regular, and is Lindelöf under countable choice Lemma
- Under choice, every open cover of a paracompact Hausdorff space has locally finite open refinements {Vₛ} and {Wₛ} with overlineVₛ⊆ Wₛ⊆overlineWₛ⊆ Uₛ Lemma
- Under countable choice, every regular Lindelöf space is paracompact Lemma
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 22 results over 11 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- Regular space (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- J. Munkres, Topology, 2nd ed., §31 (standard reference, not scraped)
- R. Gardner, Introduction to Topology, notes on Munkres Section 31: The Separation Axioms (East Tennessee State University) (standard reference, not scraped)