7
$\begingroup$

It seems these spaces are the most useful ones for doing probabilities. Are LCCB (locally compact with countable basis) somewhat more general spaces that when endowed with a metric become Polish? I think I once knew the answer to this question. Thanks

  • 0
    By locally compact wit$h$ countable basis, do you mean sigma-locally-compact ? if yes, the space would have lindelöf property, and if it is endowed with a metric, it would be separable.2012-07-09

2 Answers 2

3

Theorem. Every locally-compact second-countable Hausdorff space is a Polish space.

I thought I'd quote a sketch of proof of above fact from somewhere else.

The following sketch is from https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/08/polish_spaces.html

if X is second countable locally compact Hausdorff, then the one-point compactification X+ is metrizable and compact, hence complete (under any metric), and of course second countable, hence X+ is Polish. An open subspace of a Polish space is Polish, hence X is Polish.

Bourbaki (which I found as a Google Book result) provided invaluable assistance.

As for why an open subspace of a Polish space is Polish, again from the same link:

I had no idea that an open set of a Polish space was Polish — it seemed pretty tough removing that extra point and finding a complete metric on what’s left.

I now see how easy this is: we start with a metric on the one-point compactification X+, remove the point at infinity, and ‘stretch’ the metric near the removed point to get a complete metric on X.

As for why the one-point compactification is metrizable, the selected answer from the following thread explains how to build a local countable basis at infinity:

If $X$ is locally compact, second countable and Hausdorff, then $X^*$ is metrizable and hence $X$ is metrizable

2

After a bit of research I found that A locally compact space that is Hausdorff (LCH) will be sigma-locally-compact. Also that a LCCB will be metrizable (with a complete metric) and separable thus Polish too. thanks

  • 2
    The converse doesn't hold, though. Take, for example, $L^1(\mathbb R)$, the set of absolutely integrable Lebesgue-measurable functions on $\mathbb R$ (with any two functions equal almost everywhere being identified). It is a separable Banach space, so it is Polish (and second countable). However, it is _not_ locally compact, because no infinite-dimensional normed vector space is.2015-01-29