Non-Hausdorff manifold

In geometry and topology, it is a usual axiom of a manifold to be a Hausdorff space, that is "manifold" means "second countable Hausdorff manifold".

In general topology, this axiom is relaxed, and one studies non-Hausdorff manifolds: spaces locally homeomorphic to Euclidean space, but not necessarily Hausdorff.

Examples

Line with two origins

The most familiar non-Hausdorff manifold is the line with two origins, or bug-eyed line.

This is the quotient space of two copies of the real line

R × {a} and R × {b}

with the equivalence relation

This space has a single point for each nonzero real number r and two points 0a and 0b. A local base of open neighborhoods of in this space can be thought to consist of sets of the form , where is any positive real number. A similar description of a local base of open neighborhoods of is possible. Thus, in this space all neighbourhoods of 0a intersect all neighbourhoods of 0b, so it is non-Hausdorff.

Further, the line with two origins does not have the homotopy type of a CW-complex, or of any Hausdorff space.[1]

Branching line

Similar to the line with two origins is the branching line.

This is the quotient space of two copies of the real line

R × {a} and R × {b}

with the equivalence relation

This space has a single point for each negative real number r and two points for every non-negative number: it has a "fork" at zero.

Etale space

The etale space of a sheaf, such as the sheaf of continuous real functions over a manifold, is a manifold that is often non-Hausdorff. (The etale space is Hausdorff if it is a sheaf of functions with some sort of analytic continuation property.)

Quantum path integration (sum over histories)

Mark F. Sharlow claims that functional spacetime of path integral has a "branching" non-Hausdorff structure.[2]

Notes

  1. Gabard, pp. 4–5
  2. Mark F. Sharlow (2005–2007). "The quantum mechanical path integral: toward a realistic interpretation" (PDF).

References

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