Separation axioms in topological spaces |
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Kolmogorov classification | |
T0 | (Kolmogorov) |
T1 | (Fréchet) |
T2 | (Hausdorff) |
T2½ | (Urysohn) |
completely T2 | (completely Hausdorff) |
T3 | (regular Hausdorff) |
T3½ | (Tychonoff) |
T4 | (normal Hausdorff) |
T5 | (completely normal Hausdorff) |
T6 | (perfectly normal Hausdorff) |
History |
In topology and related fields of mathematics, a topological space X is called a regular space if every closed subset C of X and a point p not contained in C admit non-overlapping open neighborhoods. Thus p and C can be separated by neighborhoods. This condition is known as Axiom T3. The term "T3 space" usually means "a regular Hausdorff space". These conditions are examples of separation axioms.
A topological space X is a regular space if, given any closed set F and any point x that does not belong to F, there exists a neighbourhood U of x and a neighbourhood V of F that are disjoint. Concisely put, it must be possible to separate x and F with disjoint neighborhoods.
A T3 space or regular Hausdorff space is a topological space that is both regular and a Hausdorff space. (A Hausdorff space or T2 space is a topological space in which any two distinct points are separated by neighbourhoods.) It turns out that a space is T3 if and only if it is both regular and T0. (A T0 or Kolmogorov space is a topological space in which any two distinct points are topologically distinguishable, i.e., for every pair of distinct points, at least one of them has an open neighborhood not containing the other.) Indeed, if a space is Hausdorff then it is T0, and each T0 regular space is Hausdorff: given two distinct points, at least one of them misses the closure of the other one, so (by regularity) there exist disjoint neighborhoods separating one point from (the closure of) the other.