topological transformation group
Let be a topological group and any topological space
. We say that is a topological transformation group of if acts on continuously, in the following sense:
- 1.
there is a continuous function
, where is given the product topology
- 2.
, and
- 3.
.
The function is called the (left) action of on . When there is no confusion, is simply written , so that the two conditions above read and .
If a topological transformation group on is effective, then can be viewed as a group of homeomorphisms on : simply define by for each so that is the identity function precisely when .
Some Examples.
- 1.
Let , and be the group of matrices over . Clearly and are both topological spaces with the usual topology. Furthermore, is a topological group. acts on continuous if we view elements of as column vectors
and take the action to be the matrix multiplication
on the left.
- 2.
If is a topological group, can be considered a topological transformation group on itself. There are many continuous actions that can be defined on . For example, given by is one such action. It is continuous, and satisfies the two action axioms. is also effective with respect to .