The poset of copies for automorphism groups of countable relational structures

TL;DR

This paper introduces and studies the poset of copies derived from the topological closure of automorphism groups of countable relational structures, linking group-theoretic properties with structural embeddings.

Contribution

It initiates the systematic study of the poset of copies for automorphism groups of countable structures, connecting topological closures with embeddings and copies of relational structures.

Findings

The poset of copies characterizes automorphism groups of countable structures.

Connections established between topological closure and structural embeddings.

Framework for analyzing automorphism groups via posets of copies.

Abstract

Let $\mathrm{G}$ be a subgroup of the symmetric group $\mathfrak S(U)$ of all permutations of a countable set $U$. Let $\overline{\mathrm{G}}$ be the topological closure of $\mathrm{G}$ in the function topology on $U^U$. We initiate the study of the poset $\overline{\mathrm{G}}[U]:=\{f[U]\mid f\in \overline{\mathrm{G}}\}$ of images of the functions in $\overline{\mathrm{G}}$, being ordered under inclusion. This set $\overline{\mathrm{G}}[U]$ of subsets of the set $U$ will be called the \emph{poset of copies for} the group $\mathrm{G}$. A denomination being justified by the fact that for every subgroup $\mathrm{G}$ of the symmetric group $\mathfrak S(U)$ there exists a homogeneous relational structure $R$ on $U$ such that $\overline G$ is the set of embeddings of the homogeneous structure $R$ into itself and $\overline{\mathrm{G}}[U]$ is the set of copies of $R$ in $R$ and that the set of bijections $\overline G\cap \mathfrak S(U)$ of $U$ to $U$ forms the group of automorphisms of $\mathrm{R}$.