Invariants for metrisable locally compact Boolean spaces
Abstract
Pierce identified 3 invariants of a compact metrisable Boolean space, derived from its Cantor-Bendixson sequence, that determine the space up to homeomorphism. For locally compact spaces we define an additional invariant, the compact rank, and show that these 4 invariants determine a locally compact metrisable Boolean space up to homeomorphism. We also identify which combinations of the 4 invariants can arise in practice. A Boolean ring and its associated Boolean space are primitive if the ring is disjointly generated by its pseudo-indecomposable (PI) elements. Spaces in this important sub-class of Boolean spaces can be well described (uniquely in the case of compact spaces) by an extended PO system (poset with a distinguished subset). We define the Cantor-Bendixson sequence and associated invariants for a PO system, and show that almost all of the invariant information for a primitive space can be recovered from that of an associated extended PO system. We also show how the primitivity of a Boolean space corresponds to a notion of primitivity of the additive measure associated with the rank function of a space, which in turn depends on the additive measure being sufficiently 'self-similar'. We use these ideas to develop a method for constructing non-primitive spaces.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2502.15492,
title = {Invariants for metrisable locally compact Boolean spaces},
author = {Andrew B. Apps},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.15492},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
32 pages