Borel equivalence relation

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In mathematics, a Borel equivalence relation on a Polish space X is an equivalence relation on X that is a Borel subset of X × X (in the product topology).

Given Borel equivalence relations E and F, on Polish spaces X and Y respectively, one says that E is Borel reducible to F, in symbols E ≤_B F, if and only if there is a Borel function

Θ : X → Y

such that for all x,x' ∈ X, one has

xEx' ⇔ Θ(x)FΘ(x' ).

Conceptually, if E is Borel reducible to F, then E is "not more complicated" than F, and the quotient space X/E has a lesser or equal "Borel cardinality" than Y/F, where "Borel cardinality" is like cardinality except for a definability restriction on the witnessing mapping.

[edit] Kuratowski's theorem

A measure space X is called a standard Borel space if it is Borel-isomorphic to a Borel subset of a Polish space. Kuratowski's theorem then states that two standard Borel spaces X and Y are Borel-isomorphic iff |X| = |Y|.

[edit] References

• Harrington, L. A., A. S. Kechris, A. Louveau (Oct. 1990). "A Glimm-Effros Dichotomy for Borel equivalence relations". Journal of the American Mathematical Society 3 (2): 903-928.
• Kechris, Alexander S. (1994). Classical Descriptive Set Theory. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0-387-94374-9.
• Silver, Jack H. (1980). "Counting the number of equivalence classes of Borel and coanalytic equivalence relations". Annals of Mathematical Logic 18 (1): 1-28.