o-bounded groups and other topological groups with strong combinatorial properties

Boaz Tsaban

Published 2003-07-16, updated 2010-10-31Version 7

We construct several topological groups with very strong combinatorial properties. In particular, we give simple examples of subgroups of the real line R (thus strictly o-bounded) which have the Hurewicz property but are not sigma-compact, and show that the product of two o-bounded subgroups of R^N may fail to be o-bounded, even when they satisfy the stronger property S1(Borel_Omega,Borel_Omega). This solves a problem of Tkacenko and Hernandez, and extends independent solutions of Krawczyk and Michalewski and of Banakh, Nickolas, and Sanchis. We also construct separable metrizable groups G of size continuum such that every countable Borel omega-cover of G contains a gamma-cover of G.