The Lawson number of a semitopological semilattice

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Lawson number for Hausdorff topologized semilattices, characterizes when a semilattice is Lawson, and explores properties of semilattices with bounded Lawson number, including closure properties and constructions with specific cardinalities.

Contribution

It defines the Lawson number for semilattices, characterizes Lawson semilattices via this number, and investigates properties of semilattices with bounded Lawson number, including closure and construction results.

Findings

A compact Hausdorff semitopological semilattice is Lawson iff its Lawson number is 1.

Every Hausdorff topological semilattice has Lawson number at most countable.

Constructed examples of semilattices with Lawson number equal to the cofinality of their cardinality.

Abstract

For a Hausdorff topologized semilattice $X$ its $Lawson\;\; number$ $\bar\Lambda(X)$ is the smallest cardinal $\kappa$ such that for any distinct points $x,y\in X$ there exists a family $\mathcal U$ of closed neighborhoods of $x$ in $X$ such that $|\mathcal U|\le\kappa$ and $\bigcap\mathcal U$ is a subsemilattice of $X$ that does not contain $y$. It follows that $\bar\Lambda(X)\le\bar\psi(X)$, where $\bar\psi(X)$ is the smallest cardinal $\kappa$ such that for any point $x\in X$ there exists a family $\mathcal U$ of closed neighborhoods of $x$ in $X$ such that $|\mathcal U|\le\kappa$ and $\bigcap\mathcal U=\{x\}$. We prove that a compact Hausdorff semitopological semilattice $X$ is Lawson (i.e., has a base of the topology consisting of subsemilattices) if and only if $\bar\Lambda(X)=1$. Each Hausdorff topological semilattice $X$ has Lawson number $\bar\Lambda(X)\le\omega$. On the other hand, for any infinite cardinal $\lambda$ we construct a Hausdorff zero-dimensional semitopological semilattice $X$ such that $|X|=\lambda$ and $\bar\Lambda(X)=\bar\psi(X)=cf(\lambda)$. A topologized semilattice $X$ is called (i) $\omega$-$Lawson$ if $\bar\Lambda(X)\le\omega$; (ii) $complete$ if each non-empty chain $C\subset X$ has $\inf C\in\overline{C}$ and $\sup C\in\overline{C}$. We prove that for any complete subsemilattice $X$ of an $\omega$-Lawson semitopological semilattice $Y$, the partial order $\le_X=\{(x,y)\in X\times X:xy=x\}$ of $X$ is closed in $Y\times Y$ and hence $X$ is closed in $Y$. This implies that for any continuous homomorphism $h:X\to Y$ from a compete topologized semilattice $X$ to an $\omega$-Lawson semitopological semilattice $Y$ the image $h(X)$ is closed in $Y$.