Baire property in the Ellentuck topology Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A subset of the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers has this property when it differs from an Ellentuck topology open set by a meagre set in the same topology. By the complete-Ramsey characterization, these are precisely the completely Ramsey sets. Using meagreness from a different topology changes the definition.
In the Ellentuck topology, suppose every open set is completely Ramsey and every meagre set is completely Ramsey-null. If is contained in a meagre set for some open , first refine a basic neighbourhood without changing its stem to avoid that exceptional set, and then refine again to be homogeneous for . The resulting neighbourhood is homogeneous for . Sets with such an open representative form a sigma-algebra: countable unions collect the meagre errors, and complements replace by its interior, differing only on the nowhere-dense boundary of . This proves that all star-Borel sets are completely Ramsey.
Comeagre set 2026-10-06
The complement of a comeagre set is a meagre set, a countable union of nowhere dense sets. A dense G-delta set is comeagre. The Baire category theorem ensures that two comeagre subsets of a nonempty complete metric space cannot be disjoint.
The image of in the L1 space is a meagre set. The canonical map is a bounded linear operator from the Banach space with its supremum norm, since . It is not onto: the indicator of has no continuous function representative. Continuity would force values zero throughout and one throughout , contradicting continuity at . The operator range category dichotomy therefore proves the claim. Continuous ramps also show directly that this image is not closed, since their L1 norm distance to that indicator is for .
In the ordinary topology on infinite subsets, the family of cofinite sets is a countable set, a dense and a meagre set. Countability follows by indexing its members by their finite complements. Each singleton is closed with empty interior, while every basic cylinder with finite initial segment contains . Consequently is not a nowhere dense set. This example uses the ordinary cylinder topology, rather than the Ramsey cone topology.
Every Borel set for the Ellentuck topology is completely Ramsey. First, an acceptance-and-rejection fusion makes every open set homogeneous after thinning the infinite reservoir while keeping its finite stem. Every nowhere-dense set is consequently completely Ramsey-null, and a fusion handling all subsets of each finite selected prefix shows that countable unions of such null sets remain null. Finally, sets differing from an open set by a meagre set form a sigma-algebra containing the open sets. Thus every Borel set has the required stem-preserving homogeneous refinement.
Generic nowhere-monotone continuous function Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
In with the uniform norm, the continuous functions that are monotone on some interval of positive length form a meagre set. Indeed, it is enough to use intervals with rational endpoints. For each such interval, the nondecreasing and nonincreasing functions form closed sets with empty interior: a sufficiently small local triangular perturbation breaks the relevant inequality. The Baire category theorem therefore shows that a dense set of continuous functions is monotone on no nontrivial interval.
Generic superfactorial derivative growth at rational points Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Outside a meagre set in , every rational and every positive integer admit such that
For fixed , the union over of these strict-inequality sets is open. It is dense because a perturbation can make the th derivative arbitrarily large while keeping any prescribed finite collection of lower derivatives arbitrarily small. The Baire category theorem applied over the countable pairs gives the claim.
Lusin set 2026-10-06
A Lusin set is an uncountable subset of the real numbers such that is countable for every meagre set . Every meagre subset has a meagre cover, so testing those covers suffices. The Lusin set construction under CH gives an example. A Lusin set has no uncountable meagre subset of itself.
Under the Continuum hypothesis, enumerate the meagre covers by . At stage choose a new real outside all earlier covers and the previous choices. The excluded union is meagre, so the Baire category theorem makes the choice possible. Each cover then contains only countably many selected points. Arbitrary meagre sets need not themselves have only continuum many possible choices; the coded covers are what is enumerated.
Luzin set 2026-10-06
An uncountable subset of the real numbers with countable intersection with every meagre set. This is the category counterpart of a Sierpiński set.
The whole space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers is a meagre set in the Ramsey cone topology. For , the closure is , which has empty interior: every infinite ground set can be thinned to omit . Thus all are nowhere dense, while their countable union is the whole space. In contrast, the whole space is not meagre in either the Ellentuck topology or the ordinary topology on infinite subsets.
A bounded linear operator from a Banach space to a normed space either maps onto or has meagre set image in . To prove this, write . If every has empty interior, each term is a nowhere dense set. Otherwise scaling and geometric correction for approximate surjectivity place a ball about zero inside ; the vector subspace then equals . In particular a nonclosed operator image is a meagre set. A proper closed operator image is also a meagre set, so the closed/meagre alternatives need not be exclusive.
For put , with closure taken in . Then
If every has empty interior, then each is a nowhere dense set, because it is closed. Each is then a nowhere dense set too. Consequently is a meagre set, that is, a set of the first category in .
Otherwise some has nonempty interior. Scaling gives nonempty interior of . The geometric correction for approximate surjectivity proved in the preceding part gives an open ball about zero inside . Since is a vector subspace, it then equals : scale any into this ball and scale its preimage back. Hence is a closed set.
Thus, in fact, the stronger operator range category dichotomy holds:
In particular is closed or of the first category, as required. The only substantive theorem used here is the preceding geometric correction for approximate surjectivity: for a bounded linear operator from a Banach space to a normed space, nonempty interior of the closure of the image of the unit ball implies nonempty interior of the image itself. Its series proof was given there, so this proof does not require the Baire category theorem or completeness of .
Identify with the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers. A family has an infinite homogeneous set for a colouring if some infinite satisfies
This is the Ramsey family in the homogeneous-cone sense formulation. The relative Ramsey set of infinite subsets formulation asks for such an inside every prescribed infinite ground set. We prove the stronger completely Ramsey assertion, keeping an arbitrary finite stem fixed.
For a finite stem and an infinite tail with (taking ), write
These neighbourhoods generate the Ellentuck topology, or star topology. A star-Borel set belongs to the sigma-algebra generated by the open sets of this topology. It is completely Ramsey if every has an infinite with or . Taking gives both preceding Ramsey formulations.
We first prove the fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets. Fix a star-open set and a starting neighbourhood . A reservoir above a finite extension accepts when . It rejects when no infinite subreservoir accepts it. Every infinite reservoir has a refinement deciding : if an accepting subreservoir exists choose one, and otherwise the reservoir already rejects. Both acceptance and rejection persist under further infinite thinning. These are acceptance and rejection of finite stems.
First refine to decide the empty extension. Choose from the refined reservoir and thin the remaining tail to decide every subset of . After choosing , thin the unused infinite tail to decide every subset of this finite prefix before choosing . Only finitely many decisions occur at each stage. Let . For each finite , its tail
(with ) is contained in the reservoir chosen when the largest point of was selected. Thus decides . This is deciding all finite stems by fusion.
If accepts the empty extension, and we are done. Otherwise it rejects it. Call a finite accepted or rejected according to the decision of . For each rejected , the set
is finite. Indeed, if were infinite, every would have a least element with accepted, and its remaining tail lies in . Hence for every such , making an accepting subreservoir for , a contradiction. This proves the finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem fact.
Build by choosing each new point outside all the finitely many sets for subsets of the already selected prefix. Begin with the rejected empty extension. Inductively every finite subset of the new prefix is rejected: the old subsets stay rejected, and each new subset is a rejected extended by a point outside , whose decision must therefore be rejection. Consequently every finite is rejected.
If a point belonged to , star-openness would give a basic neighbourhood containing it. Extend along the increasing enumeration of , if necessary, until its stem is for a finite . The infinite tail of above that stem then provides an accepting subreservoir for , contradicting rejection. Therefore . We have proved that every star-open set is completely Ramsey.
A family is completely Ramsey-null when every has a stem-preserving refinement disjoint from . Every star-nowhere dense set has this property. Apply the open-set result to the dense open complement of its star-closure. The disjoint alternative would put an entire basic neighbourhood inside a closure with empty interior, which is impossible. The other alternative gives the required avoidance.
We also need the full Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma, not a diagonal argument checking only one prefix. Let be completely Ramsey-null, and start inside . At stage , suppose have been chosen. Refine the remaining infinite tail successively so that
The null property permits each refinement with its stem unchanged; previous avoidance survives thinning. There are finitely many at this stage. Choose and continue above it. Let .
For any infinite and any fixed , put . Its remaining points form an infinite subset of , so and hence . This works for every , proving
Thus countable unions of completely Ramsey-null sets are null. Subsets of null sets are null as well. In particular every star-meagre set, being a countable union of star-nowhere-dense sets, is completely Ramsey-null.
Finally let consist of families such that is contained in a star-meagre set for some star-open . This is the Baire property in the Ellentuck topology. We verify that it forms a sigma-algebra. Open sets belong with empty error. For a countable union, use ; its error is contained in the countable union of the meagre errors. For complements, replace by its interior. The discrepancy is
a closed nowhere-dense set: every open set meeting also meets , so none can lie wholly in this boundary. Adding it to the original meagre error handles complementation. Consequently every star-Borel set belongs to .
For such an , start with any . First apply null avoidance to its meagre error to find on which agrees with . Then apply open-set homogeneity to refine it to wholly inside or outside , and therefore wholly inside or outside . This is the Baire-property reduction for completely Ramsey families. We conclude
All closures, interiors, openness and meagreness in this argument refer to the star topology; replacing it midway by the ordinary finite-prefix topology would not justify the null-avoidance step.
Write for the infinite subsets of an infinite . A Ramsey set of infinite subsets is a family such that each infinite ground set has an infinite subset with
The convention asking only for one such homogeneous cone is weaker; the proof below establishes the displayed property and, in fact, the stronger completely Ramsey set property.
For a finite stem and an infinite reservoir lying above every element of , put
These sets form the basic open neighbourhoods of the Ellentuck topology, or star topology. Here is an initial segment of every member of . A star-Borel set means a member of the sigma-algebra generated by these open sets. A family is completely Ramsey if every has a homogeneous refinement with infinite and the same stem . We prove this for every star-Borel set, beginning with open sets.
Fix a star-open family and a basic neighbourhood . An infinite reservoir above a finite stem accepts if . It rejects if no infinite subset of accepts . A reservoir decides if it accepts or rejects it. Any reservoir has a refinement deciding a prescribed stem: take an accepting refinement if there is one, and otherwise the current reservoir rejects. Both kinds of decision persist under infinite thinning.
First refine to decide . If the decision is acceptance, the required homogeneous neighbourhood has already been found. Suppose it is rejection. We use deciding all finite stems by fusion to select
from nested infinite reservoirs. After selecting , successively thin the remaining reservoir to decide every stem with . There are only finitely many such , so every stage can be completed. Choose from that thinned reservoir and repeat. Let . For every finite , the tail
decides ; for , use all of . Indeed, the stem was decided at the stage when its largest point was selected, and its final tail is a subset of the reservoir retained at that stage. The empty stem remains rejected by the initial decision.
The crucial finite-obstruction fact is that a rejected stem has only finitely many accepting one-point extensions. More precisely, suppose rejects . If infinitely many had accepting , collect those into an infinite . Any has a least point , and its remaining tail lies in . Acceptance at would then imply . Thus would accept , contradicting rejection. This proves the finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem assertion with the reservoirs specified.
Thin a second time. Having selected a finite prefix of , maintain that every stem with a subset of that prefix is rejected relative to its tail in . Each such stem has finitely many forbidden next points leading to acceptance. Choose the next point of above the prefix and outside the union of these finitely many finite forbidden sets. The deciding property of then makes every newly created stem rejected. Starting with the rejected empty extension gives an infinite all of whose finite extensions of are rejected.
We claim . Otherwise take . Star-openness supplies a basic neighbourhood inside containing . Extend its finite stem along until it contains ; the new stem has the form for a finite initial segment of . The remaining infinite tail of is a subset of and accepts that stem, contradicting rejection. This proves the fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets: every star-open set is completely Ramsey.
Next call completely Ramsey-null if every has a same-stem refinement disjoint from . Every star-nowhere dense set is completely Ramsey-null. Indeed, the complement of its star-closure is star-open and dense. Apply the just-proved open-set result inside . The homogeneous alternative disjoint from would be a nonempty open set contained in the closure of a nowhere-dense set, which is impossible. Hence some lies entirely in and avoids .
Countable unions of completely Ramsey-null sets are again completely Ramsey-null. Here is the full Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma. Given and , construct selected prefixes and nested unused infinite reservoirs. At stage , refine the reservoir, still lying above , to arrange
Each constraint can be imposed by complete Ramsey-nullness, with all earlier constraints preserved by thinning; there are finitely many constraints. Choose and retain the tail above it for the next stage. Start with and the reservoir .
Let . If and is fixed, take any and put . Every remaining point of lies in , so and . Therefore
This construction handles all subsets of a selected prefix, not merely the full prefix: members of may skip arbitrarily many selected points. Since a meagre set is a countable union of nowhere-dense sets, every star-meagre set is completely Ramsey-null.
It remains to pass from star-open sets to star-Borel sets. Let consist of the families expressible as
where is star-open and is star-meagre. We verify directly that is a sigma-algebra. It contains every open set. Countable unions remain in , because
and a countable union of meagre sets is meagre. For complements, replace by the open set . The omitted part is , the boundary of the open set , which is closed and nowhere dense: a nonempty open subset of must meet , so it cannot lie in this boundary. Thus
a meagre set. Subsets of meagre sets are meagre as well, since taking a subset preserves nowhere denseness. These observations prove the claimed sigma-algebra property. Hence every star-Borel set belongs to .
Finally, for and any , first use complete Ramsey-nullness to obtain avoiding . On that neighbourhood and coincide. Apply the open-set result to within to get a homogeneous . Therefore
Taking gives the requested homogeneous infinite-subset cone inside any given infinite ground set. Every closure, interior, open set and meagreness used in this proof refers to the Ellentuck topology; substituting the coarser ordinary topology at an intermediate step would change the assertion.
Write for the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers, and for all infinite subsets of an infinite . A family is a Ramsey set of infinite subsets if for every infinite there is an infinite with either or .
A non-Ramsey set of infinite subsets is obtained by finite-symmetric-difference parity colouring. Declare when their symmetric difference is finite, and use the axiom of choice to select a representative for each equivalence class. Put
For every infinite , both and belong to and have the same representative. Toggling one element changes the parity of the finite symmetric difference, so these two sets have opposite colors. Thus no is homogeneous, and is not a Ramsey set of infinite subsets. Only finite differences are counted; no parity is being assigned to an infinite cardinal.
We use the Ellentuck topology for the star notation. Its basic neighborhoods are
where is a finite stem (the initial segment of each member of the neighborhood) and every element of the infinite reservoir exceeds ; the empty stem is allowed. A star-nowhere dense set has star-closure with empty star-interior; a star-meagre set is a countable union of star-nowhere dense sets.
We need the following stem-preserving open-set conclusion: a star-open set has, in every , an infinite such that or . Here is the fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets, so that the precise form being used is explicit. A reservoir accepts a finite extension of when , and rejects it when no infinite subreservoir accepts it. Every reservoir can be thinned to decide a prescribed stem: take an accepting subreservoir if one exists, and otherwise it already rejects. Acceptance and rejection are hereditary under further infinite thinning.
First thin to decide . If it accepts, we have finished. Otherwise, choose successive points , thinning the unused tail after each selection to decide every stem with a subset of the finitely many points already selected. Each stage requires only finitely many decisions. The final set therefore decides every such finite extension, using the tail above its largest point. It rejects .
For any rejected stem , only finitely many possible next points of have accepting tails for . Otherwise collect infinitely many such points into . Every member of starts with some such , and its remaining points lie in the accepting tail above . Hence , contradicting rejection. A second selection now gives all of whose finite extensions of are rejected: at each stage avoid the finitely many forbidden next points for each subset of the chosen prefix. Previous rejections persist on thinning. If , star-openness gives an initial stem of and an infinite tail of whose entire neighborhood lies in . This is an accepting subreservoir for a stem we made rejected, a contradiction. Thus , proving the needed open-set conclusion.
Apply this conclusion to when is star-nowhere dense. This is star-open and star-dense. The alternative would give a nonempty star-open set inside , contradicting empty interior. Consequently every star-nowhere dense set can be avoided without extending the finite stem.
Now let , each star-nowhere dense, and fix . Construct with nested infinite unused reservoirs. At stage , let . For every , in turn, thin the current reservoir using the preceding avoidance property until
There are only finitely many such , and subsequent thinning preserves all previous avoidances. Choose and retain the part of above for the next stage. Put . For any and any , the finite part is one of the stems tested at stage , and the rest of lies in . Hence and . This proves .
The final is star-open and disjoint from , so it is also disjoint from the star-closure of . Every basic neighborhood therefore has a nonempty open refinement missing that closure. This Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma proves
Indeed, we obtained the stronger completely Ramsey-null property. Testing all subsets of the selected prefix was essential; testing just the entire prefix would not cover every infinite subset of .
Write for the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers, identifying a set with its increasing enumeration. If is finite and is infinite with every element of above , set
For the empty stem there is no lower-bound restriction. These sets form the basis of the Ellentuck topology, also called the star topology. The stem is fixed, while the infinite tail may be thinned.
A completely Ramsey set is one for which every admits an infinite with or . This keeps the same stem. A Ramsey set of infinite subsets requires that every infinite admit an infinite with a homogeneous empty-stem cone . It does not require preserving a nonempty finite stem.
A set is a star-Baire set if it differs from a star-open set by a star-meagre set, equivalently is star-meagre for some star-open . A nowhere dense set has closure with empty interior, and a meagre set is a countable union of such sets, with both notions interpreted in the specified topology.
For a non-Ramsey example, put and well-order all infinite subsets of as , where . Recursively choose two fresh points , not used at earlier stages. This is possible because each cone has cardinality and fewer than points have been used before any stage. Let
keeping all the outside . Every infinite-subset cone on meets both and its complement. Thus is not Ramsey, even when regarded as a subset of : any infinite set can first be thinned to avoid . This uses the axiom of choice, rather than claiming a Borel counterexample.
Now set
Every infinite has an infinite subset avoiding , and then . Hence is Ramsey. But no stem-preserving thinning of is homogeneous for , because splits every tail cone. Hence is not completely Ramsey.
To prove the topological equivalence, we first establish the Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma: every star-meagre set can be avoided in a refinement with the original stem. Call a set completely Ramsey-null if this avoidance holds in every .
If is star-nowhere dense, then is star-open and dense. By the granted complete-Ramsey property of star-open sets, every has a refinement either contained in or disjoint from . The latter alternative would put a nonempty open set inside , contradicting density of . Thus is completely Ramsey-null.
For a countable union of completely Ramsey-null sets, use fusion, taking care of every possible finite stem. Starting with , at stage choose above all previous choices. From the part of above , successively thin an infinite tail for each of the finitely many subsets so that
Each thinning keeps the stem fixed; subsequent thinnings preserve earlier avoidance. Let . For any and fixed , put . The rest of lies in , because all later selected points do. Therefore and . Since was arbitrary,
This proves the fusion lemma. Considering all subsets , not merely the single selected prefix, is essential: elements of need not use every .
Suppose first that is star-Baire, with star-meagre and star-open. Thin to avoiding the meagre difference by the lemma. Then apply the granted complete-Ramsey property of to find homogeneous for , with . On this refinement and agree, so it is homogeneous for . Thus is completely Ramsey.
Conversely, let be completely Ramsey and let be the union of all basic neighborhoods wholly contained in , namely its star-interior. Every has a homogeneous refinement. If that refinement lies in , it lies in ; if it avoids , it also avoids . Consequently every basic neighborhood contains a nonempty open refinement disjoint from . Since such a refinement is also disjoint from the closure of , this difference is star-nowhere dense. Thus is star-meagre, and is star-Baire. We have proved
Finally, is not star-meagre: otherwise apply the fusion lemma to its purported meagre cover inside any nonempty basic neighborhood, obtaining a nonempty disjoint from , a contradiction.
The printed paper does not define . In the coarser Ramsey cone topology, whose basic open sets are without finite stems, is -meagre. To prove this, let . Its cone-topology closure is : every cone neighborhood of a point containing has a subset with least element , whereas if the neighborhood avoids . No nonempty cone lies in , since its infinite ground set can be thinned to remove . Therefore each is nowhere dense, but . This proves meagreness of the Ramsey cone topology and exhibits the contrast with the star topology.
If instead denotes the ordinary topology on infinite subsets, with basic cylinders , the answer is not -meagre. Indeed, given countably many nowhere dense sets, extend a finite increasing prefix successively so that its cylinder avoids the closure of the next set. Make the prefix longer at each step. Their union is an infinite increasing enumeration belonging to every chosen cylinder and avoiding the whole proposed cover. The same construction starts inside any nonempty cylinder, so this alternative product topology is also a Baire space. The two conventions have different answers, so the distinction must be made explicitly rather than inferred from the symbol alone.
The construction gives a Lusin set with all distinct.
Every meagre set is contained in a meagre set: replace each nowhere dense set in a countable covering by its closure. There are at most such covers, since each closed subset of is determined by a countable rational basis for its open complement, and a countable sequence of such codes is again coded by a real. Under the Continuum hypothesis, enumerate all meagre sets as , allowing repetitions.
By transfinite recursion, choose
For each , the excluded union is a meagre set: it is a countable union of meagre sets and singletons. The Baire category theorem ensures that it does not cover , so the choice is possible. The resulting is uncountable. If is meagre, choose with . Every with avoids , hence
which is countable. Thus has precisely the Lusin set property. Enumerating covers rather than all meagre sets avoids an unjustified claim that there are only continuum many arbitrary meagre subsets.
The continuum hypothesis holds. Let be the assumed Lusin set of cardinality . If , choose with . The size assumption makes a meagre set, but then is uncountable, contradicting the Lusin set property. Thus
One can also use (d) directly: well-order in type . Each proper initial segment has size below , so is meagre and consequently countable, since it is a subset of the Lusin set. These initial segments form a linear increasing union of countable sets equal to . The bound in (d) gives .