Topological Groups and Related Structures, An Introduction to Topological Algebra.

Algebraandtopology,thetwofundamentaldomainsofmathematics,playcomplem- tary roles. Topology studies continuity and convergence and provides a general framework to study the concept of a limit. Much of topology is devoted to handling in?nite sets and in?nity itself; the methods developed are qualitative and, in a certain sense, irrational. - gebra studies all kinds of operations and provides a basis for algorithms and calculations. Very often, the methods here are ?nitistic in nature. Because of this difference in nature, algebra and topology have a strong tendency to develop independently, not in direct contact with each other. However, in applications, in higher level domains of mathematics, such as functional analysis, dynamical systems, representation theory, and others, topology and algebra come in contact most naturally. Many of the most important objects of mathematics represent a blend of algebraic and of topologicalstructures. Topologicalfunctionspacesandlineartopologicalspacesingeneral, topological groups and topological ?elds, transformation groups, topological lattices are objects of this kind. Very often an algebraic structure and a topology come naturally together; this is the case when they are both determined by the nature of the elements of the set considered (a group of transformations is a typical example). The rules that describe the relationship between a topology and an algebraic operation are almost always transparentandnatural—theoperationhastobecontinuous,jointlyorseparately. This book presents a large amount of material, both classic and recent (on occasion, unpublished) about the relations of Algebra and Topology. It therefore belongs to the area called Topological Algebra. More specifically, the objects of the study are subtle and sometimes unexpected phenomena that occur when the continuity meets and properly feeds an algebraic operation. Such a combination gives rise to many classic structures, including topological groups and semigroups, paratopological groups, etc. Special emphasis is given to tracing the influence of compactness and its generalizations on the properties of an algebraic operation, causing on occasion the automatic continuity of the operation. The main scope of the book, however, is outside of the locally compact structures, thus distinguishing the monograph from a series of more traditional textbooks. The book is unique in that it presents very important material, dispersed in hundreds of research articles, not covered by any monograph in existence. The reader is gently introduced to an amazing world at the interface of Algebra, Topology, and Set Theory. He/she will find that the way to the frontier of the knowledge is quite short -- almost every section of the book contains several intriguing open problems whose solutions can contribute significantly to the area Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction to Topological Groups and Semigroups....Pages 1-89 Right Topological and Semitopological Groups....Pages 90-133 Topological groups: Basic constructions....Pages 134-215 Some Special Classes of Topological Groups....Pages 216-284 Cardinal Invariants of Topological Groups....Pages 285-344 Moscow Topological Groups and Completions of Groups....Pages 345-408 Free Topological Groups....Pages 409-514 R-Factorizable Topological Groups....Pages 515-570 Compactness and its Generalizations in Topological Groups....Pages 571-696 Actions of Topological Groups on Topological Spaces....Pages 697-733 Back Matter....Pages 735-781