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,C2XC_{1}, C_{2} \subset X with C1C2=C_{1} \cap C_{2}=\emptyset there are open sets U1,U2XU_{1}, U_{2} \subset X so that CiUiC_{i} \subset U_{i} and U1U2=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 CXC \subset X we define an equivalence relation C\sim_{C} on XX by xCyx \sim_{C} y for all x,yCx, y \in C, xCxx \sim_{C} x for xCx \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 UiC=U_{i} \cap C=\emptyset. Deduce that the quotient space X/CX / \sim_{C} is also normal.