Limits of contraction groups and the Tits core

The Tits core G^+ of a totally disconnected locally compact group G is defined as the abstract subgroup generated by the closures of the contraction groups of all its elements. We show that a dense subgroup is normalised by the Tits core if and only if it contains it. It follows that every dense subnormal subgroup contains the Tits core. In particular, if G is topologically simple, then the Tits core is abstractly simple, and if G^+ is non-trivial then it is the unique minimal dense normal subgroup. The proofs are based on the fact, of independent interest, that the map which associates to an element the closure of its contraction group is continuous.