Paper 1, Section II, F

Metric and Topological Spaces | Part IB, 2012

A topological space XX is said to be normal if each point of XX is a closed subset of XX and for each pair of closed sets C1,C2⊂XC_{1}, C_{2} \subset X with C1∩C2=∅C_{1} \cap C_{2}=\emptyset there are open sets U1,U2⊂XU_{1}, U_{2} \subset X so that Ci⊂UiC_{i} \subset U_{i} and U1∩U2=∅U_{1} \cap U_{2}=\emptyset. In this case we say that the UiU_{i} separate the CiC_{i}.

Show that a compact Hausdorff space is normal. [Hint: first consider the case where C2C_{2} is a point.]

For C⊂XC \subset X we define an equivalence relation ∼C\sim_{C} on XX by x∼Cyx \sim_{C} y for all x,y∈Cx, y \in C, x∼Cxx \sim_{C} x for x∉Cx \notin C. If C,C1C, C_{1} and C2C_{2} are pairwise disjoint closed subsets of a normal space XX, show that C1C_{1} and C2C_{2} may be separated by open subsets U1U_{1} and U2U_{2} such that Ui∩C=∅U_{i} \cap C=\emptyset. Deduce that the quotient space X/∼CX / \sim_{C} is also normal.

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