REVIEW 4 major objections 7 minor 17 references
Transversal, $T_{1}$-independent, and $T_{1}$-complementary paratopological group topologies
T0 review · 4 major / 7 minor · reviewed 2026-08-14 · deepseek-v4-flash
Pith's one-line read For any infinite Hausdorff SD-paratopological group—and in particular the Sorgenfrey line—no Hausdorff paratopological group topology is T1-complementary.
desk verdict The Sorgenfrey-line negative answer to Problem 10 is real and worth publishing; the paper also contributes reusable devices (SD-paratopological groups, PT-sequences) for the paratopological group topology lattice, but some extension proofs are sketches and the text needs a cleanup pass. read the letter →
The pith
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
The reading
What carries the argument
The proofs rest on three mechanisms. (1) The SD-paratopological condition: $(G,\tau)$ is SD if some coarser saturated paratopological topology $\gamma$ has exactly the same dense subsets as $\tau$; saturation means every neighborhood $U$ of the identity has $U^{-1}$ with nonempty interior, and this is the property that converts a hypothetical T1-complement into a dense-set contradiction. (2) The submaximal paratopological group topology $PM_G$, defined as the infimum of all maximal paratopological group topologies on $G$. Theorem 4.2 shows $PM_G$ is a topological group, and Theorem 4.6 uses it as a measuring stick: a non-discrete paratopological group topology $\tau$ admits a transversal paratopological group topology exactly when $\tau$ is not below $PM_G$. (3) PT-filters and PT-sequences: a filter or sequence is PT if some paratopological group topology makes it converge to the identity, and $P(G\mid\phi)$ is the strongest such topology. Theorem 5.6 gives an explicit neighborhood base at 0, the family $\Sigma(\phi^{*})$ of finite-fold sums of tails, and Theorem 5.9 characterizes PT-sequences by asking that each nonzero element be excluded from the finite-sum sets $A(k,m)$. Theorem 5.14 shows $P(G\mid\{a_n\})$ is sequential, and Theorem 5.15 shows that for a nontrivial T-sequence it contains a closed copy of the Arens space $S_2$, hence is not Fréchet–Urysohn.
What would settle it
Exhibit a Hausdorff paratopological group topology $\sigma$ on $\mathbb{R}$ such that, with $\tau$ the Sorgenfrey topology, $\tau\cap\sigma$ is the cofinite topology and $\tau\vee\sigma$ is the discrete topology; such a pair would refute Corollary 3.4 and, with it, Theorem 3.3.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
The core discovery is that T1-complementarity is impossible for a wide class of paratopological groups, and that transversality can be characterized by a single canonical topology. Theorem 3.3 proves that if $(G,\tau)$ is an infinite Hausdorff SD-paratopological group, then no Hausdorff paratopological group topology $\sigma$ is T1-complementary to $\tau$; the proof shows every $\sigma$-neighborhood of the identity is dense in the coarser saturated topology $\gamma$, so it meets every $\tau$-neighborhood infinitely often, while transversality would require two neighborhoods whose intersection is the singleton identity. Corollary 3.4 applies this to the Sorgenfrey line and answers an open problem negatively. Theorem 3.6 adds a countable-group dichotomy: for a countable infinite group, the absence of T1-independent Hausdorff paratopological group topologies is equivalent to the absence of a transversal T1-independent pair. Theorem 4.6 gives the transversality criterion $(G,\tau)\in PTrans$ iff $\tau$ is not below the submaximal paratopological group topology $PM_G$, and Theorem 4.11 shows transversality lifts from a central subgroup to the ambient non-discrete group. Sections 5 and 6 introduce PT-filters and PT-sequences, characterize when a paratopological group is determined by one, prove that every Hausdorff PT-sequence-determined topology is transversal, show the strongest T-sequence-determined topology admits no T1-complementary Hausdorff paratopological group topology, and prove that a countable group determined by a PT-sequence, when its associated strongest topology is Hausdorff, admits a transversal PT-sequence-determined topology.
Load-bearing premise
Every Hausdorff paratopological group topology on a countable group can be thinned to a coarser Hausdorff paratopological group topology with only countably many basic open sets; if that thinning is impossible for some countable paratopological group, the equivalence in Theorem 3.6 collapses.
Editorial extensions
If this is right
- The Sorgenfrey line, and more generally every infinite Hausdorff saturated paratopological group, cannot be part of a T1-complementary pair of Hausdorff paratopological group topologies.
- A non-discrete paratopological group topology $\tau$ is transversal exactly when $\tau$ is not contained in the submaximal paratopological group topology $PM_G$, so transversality becomes a comparison with a single canonical topology.
- If a non-discrete paratopological group contains a central subgroup that is either discrete non-minimal or admits a transversal paratopological group topology, then the ambient group admits a transversal paratopological group topology.
- Every Hausdorff paratopological group topology on an infinite group determined by a PT-sequence is transversal, while the strongest topology determined by a T-sequence admits no T1-complementary Hausdorff paratopological partner.
- For countable infinite groups, the absence of T1-independent Hausdorff paratopological group topologies is equivalent to the absence of a transversal T1-independent pair, and a countable group has a non-discrete T1-paratopological group topology exactly when it has a nontrivial PT-sequence.
Reading between the lines
- A natural next test, not addressed in the paper, is whether saturation alone—without the extra dense-set condition in the definition of SD—already blocks T1-complementarity for every infinite Hausdorff paratopological group; the paper proves the obstruction only for SD groups, though the Sorgenfrey line is saturated.
- Because Theorem 5.9 reduces PT-sequencehood to a checkable finite-sum condition, one can search for explicit transversal pairs $P(G\mid\{a_n\})$ and $P(G\mid\{b_n\})$ in concrete countable groups such as $\mathbb{Z}$, using Fibonacci-type or other fast-growing sequences.
- If the countable-group equivalence of Theorem 3.6 extended to uncountable groups, then T1-complementarity would reduce entirely to T1-independence at every cardinality; the countable-weight thinning assumption makes that extension nontrivial and testable.
Signed reviews
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The paper studies transversality, T1-independence, and T1-complementarity for paratopological group topologies. Its main headline result is Theorem 3.3 and Corollary 3.4: no infinite Hausdorff SD-paratopological group, and in particular the Sorgenfrey line, admits a T1-complementary Hausdorff paratopological group topology, giving a negative answer to Problem 3.2 (Problem 10 of [5]). The paper also introduces submaximal paratopological group topologies (Theorems 4.2 and 4.6), an extension theorem for central subgroups (Theorem 4.11), and develops PT-sequences and PT-filters, proving a characterization of Abelian paratopological groups determined by PT-sequences (Theorem 5.9), a sequentiality/non-Fréchet-Urysohn result (Theorems 5.14 and 5.15), the nonexistence of T1-complementary topologies for the strongest topology determined by a T-sequence (Theorem 5.20), and several results on countable groups and PT-filters in Section 6.
Significance. If the main theorem is correct, it resolves Problem 10 of [5] in the negative, a result that is likely to be of interest to researchers working on paratopological groups and lattice-theoretic complementarity. I have checked the proof of Theorem 3.3 in detail and found it sound: the claim that UO is open in both σ and τ is valid because left and right translations are homeomorphisms in a paratopological group, the use of T1-independence to conclude that G\UO is finite is legitimate, and the final density/transversality contradiction is correct. The paper also offers useful new tools, especially the submaximal paratopological group topology and PT-sequences. However, several other advertised results, specifically Theorems 3.5, 3.6, 4.9, and 5.20, contain proof gaps or misquotations that must be addressed before the paper can be accepted.
major comments (4)
- [Section 4 (Theorem 4.9)] The proof of Theorem 4.9 is incomplete. In the case where N = ker f is neither τ-open nor τ-discrete, the assertion that "it is obvious that one can get a finer non-discrete paratopological group topology on G by taking N open" is not justified: one must check that the topology generated by adding N as a neighborhood of e is a paratopological group topology, and that it is not discrete. In the discrete case, the family A is asserted to be a filter base determining a non-discrete paratopological group topology η with η > τ, but the axioms for a neighborhood base of a paratopological group topology are not verified, and it is not shown that η is strictly finer than τ or that η is non-discrete. Because Theorem 4.9 is used in the proof of Theorem 4.11 and Corollary 4.12, these omissions affect the central-subgroup extension result advertised in the abstract.
- [Section 3 (Theorem 3.5)] Theorem 3.5 is stated with "it easily prove" after the proof of Theorem 3.3, but the argument of Theorem 3.3 does not adapt directly. In the complementary (rather than T1-complementary) setting, a nonempty set UO open in both σ and τ must be equal to G because the intersection of the two topologies is indiscrete, so the contradiction G\UO finite used in Theorem 3.3 is not available. The authors should provide a complete proof of Theorem 3.5 or remove the claim.
- [Section 3 (Theorem 3.6)] In the proof of Theorem 3.6, the passage from a Hausdorff paratopological group topology τ_i to a coarser Hausdorff paratopological group topology σ_i of countable weight relies on Shakhmatov's result [13] and [2, Problem 5.2.A]. Since [2] is mainly about topological groups, it is not clear that the quoted statement applies verbatim to paratopological groups, where inversion need not be continuous. Please state the exact result and explain why it holds for paratopological groups; if it does not, the equivalence in Theorem 3.6 is unproved, although Theorem 3.3 is unaffected.
- [Section 5 (Proposition 5.19 and Theorem 5.20)] The statement of Proposition 5.19 has the topologies swapped relative to its use in Theorem 5.20. As printed, the proposition says that if σ is sequential then the space (G,σ) is countably compact and has no nontrivial convergent sequences; in Theorem 5.20 it is τ = P(G|{a_n}) that is sequential, so the printed proposition does not justify the conclusion that (G,σ) is countably compact. Please correct the statement of Proposition 5.19 or the proof of Theorem 5.20, and verify the quotation from [15, Proposition 2.4].
minor comments (7)
- [Throughout] There are typographical errors such as "adimit" (Abstract and Corollary 3.4), "transveral" (Abstract), and "B/suppress laszczyk" (Introduction); these should be corrected.
- [Section 3 (Theorem 3.3 proof)] In the final transversal step of the proof of Theorem 3.3, the statement should read "there exist U∈σ(e) and V∈τ(e) such that U∩V={e}", not "there exist U∈σ(e) and V∈σ(e)", and the identity element should be denoted consistently as e rather than 0.
- [Section 4 (Theorem 4.6)] In Theorem 4.6 and its proof, the expression "τ /notlessorslnteql PM G" is garbled; it should be "τ ≰ PM_G".
- [Section 5 (Theorem 5.14 proof)] In the proof of Theorem 5.14, "0 ∈ F \ F" should read "0 ∈ \overline{F} \ F".
- [Section 5 (notational consistency)] The notation P(G|{a_n}) is used with the index set ω in most of Section 5, but Theorem 5.20 uses {a_n}_{n∈N}; please standardize the indexing throughout.
- [Section 6 (Theorem 6.12, Definition 6.3)] In Theorem 6.12, "there exits" should be "there exists", and in Definition 6.3 the notation "{Dn}nω" should be "{D_n}_{n∈ω}".
- [Abstract] The abstract says "a non-discrete paratopological group topology G contains a central subgroup", but the corresponding theorem is about a group H containing a subgroup G; please rephrase to avoid ambiguity.
Circularity Check
No significant circularity; the Sorgenfrey-line theorem is derived from definitions and independent prior results.
full rationale
The derivation chain is self-contained. Theorem 3.3 introduces the sufficient condition of being an SD-paratopological group, then proves that if a T1-complementary Hausdorff paratopological group topology existed, a neighborhood U of the identity in the second topology would be dense in the first topology; T1-independence forces every nonempty set open in both topologies to have finite complement, so any pair of identity neighborhoods meets infinitely often, contradicting transversality. The SD condition is not an encoding of the conclusion: it supplies a saturated coarser topology, and the rest of the argument uses only the T1-independence and transversality hypotheses. Corollary 3.4 is a direct application to the Sorgenfrey line, which is saturated. The external theorems invoked (Shakhmatov's theorem in Theorem 3.6, results from [5] and [11] in later sections) are genuine prior results and do not restate the theorem under proof. The single self-citation, [9, Theorem 3.8] in Theorem 3.7, is ancillary to the main Sorgenfrey-line claim and refers to an earlier published proof rather than to an assumption equivalent to the target result. No parameter is fitted and no prediction is merely an input under a new name, so no circularity is present.
Assumptions & free parameters
assumptions (5)
- standard math Zorn's lemma
- domain assumption Shakhmatov's theorem on condensations with countable weight
- domain assumption Protasov and Zelenyuk theory of T-sequences and topologies T(G|phi)
- domain assumption Alas and Sanchis theorem on countably compact paratopological groups
- domain assumption Dikranjan, Tkachenko, and Yaschenko foundation for transversal group topologies
invented entities (3)
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SD-paratopological group
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PT-sequence and PT-filter
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Submaximal paratopological group topology PM_G
Cite this review
Pith. "Pith review of Transversal, $T_{1}$-independent, and $T_{1}$-complementary paratopological group topologies." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/JVKFWUHX
@misc{pith2026190806236,
author = {Pith},
title = {Pith review of: Transversal, $T_1$-independent, and $T_1$-complementary paratopological group topologies},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/JVKFWUHX}},
note = {Machine review of arXiv:1908.06236}
}
abstract
We discuss the class of paratopological groups which admits a transversal, $T_{1}$-independent and $T_{1}$-complementary paratopological group topology. We show that the Sorgenfrey line does not admit a $T_{1}$-complementary Hausdorff paratopological group topology, which gives a negative answer to \cite[Problem 10]{AT2017}. We give a very useful criterion for transversality in term of submaximal paratopological group topology, and prove that if a non-discrete paratopological group topology $G$ contains a central subgroup which admits a transversal paratopological group topology, then so does $G$. We introduce the concept of $PT$-sequence and give a characterization of an Abelian paratopological group being determined by a $PT$-sequence. As the applications, we prove that the Abelian paratopological group, which is endowed with the strongest paratopological group topology being determined by a $T$-sequence, does not admit a $T_{1}$-complementary Hausdorff paratopological group topology on $G$. Finally, we study the class of countable paratopological groups which is determined by a $PT$-filter, and obtain a sufficient condition for a countable paratopological group $G$ being determined by a $PT$-sequence which admits a transversal paratopological group topology on $G$ being determined by a $PT$-sequence.
Reference graph
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Reviewed August 14, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.
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