Topologically simple group
This article defines a property that can be evaluated for a topological group (usually, a T0 topological group)
View a complete list of such properties
ANALOGY: This is an analogue in topological groups of the group property:
View other analogues of simplicity | View other analogues in topological groups of group properties
Definition
Symbol-free definition
A topologically simple group is a group that has no proper nontrivial closed normal subgroup. Note that closedness is purely a property as a subset of the topological space, while normality is a purely group-theoretic property.
Equivalently, a topologically simple group is a -topological group that has no proper nontrivial quotient group which is a -topological group under the quotient topology.
There may be non-closed normal subgroups, but the corresponding quotient groups will not be .
Facts
Closed topological subgroup-defining functions collapse to trivial or improper subgroup
A topological subgroup-defining function is a function that, given a topological group, outputs a unique subgroup of that group. A closed topological subgroup-defining function is a topological subgroup-defining function that always outputs a closed subgroup.
Now we know that the output of a topological subgroup-defining function must be a topologically characteristic subgroup, and hence a normal subgroup. Thus, the output of a closed topological subgroup-defining function must be a closed normal subgroup. In particular, for a topologically simple group, it must be either the whole group, or the trivial subgroup.
Some examples:
- The identity component, viz the connected component containing the identity, must be a closed subgroup. Thus, a topologically simple group is either connected, or totally disconnected (viz, the connected components are one-point subsets).