Boundary of Intersection of Two Open Sets in R^n

elementary-set-theorygeneral-topologymetric-spaces

Let $A,B$ be open subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$.

Does the following equality hold?

$$\partial(A\cap B)= (\bar A \cap \partial B) \cup (\partial A \cap \bar B)$$

Edit: Thanks for showing me in the answers that above formula fails if $A$ and $B$ are disjoint but their boundaries still intersect. I was able to come up with a similar formula which avoids this case
$$[\partial(A\cap B)]\setminus(\partial A \cap \partial B)= (A \cap \partial B) \cup (\partial A \cap B),$$
which I was able to prove and suffices for what I need to do.

However, when showing that $ (A \cap \partial B) \cup (\partial A \cap B)\subseteq \partial(A\cap B)$, I needed to assume that the topology is induced by a metric. I wonder if the formula still holds in an arbitrary topological space.

Best Answer

This is not true generally unless $\overline{A\cap B}=\overline{A}\cap \overline{B}$. \begin{align} \partial (A\cap B)&= \overline{A\cap B}-(A\cap B)^{o} \\ &=(\overline{A}\cap \overline{B})-(A^{o}\cap B^{o}) \\ &=(\overline{A}\cap \overline{B})\cap(A^{o}\cap B^{o})^c \\ &=(\overline{A}\cap \overline{B})\cap(A^{o^c}\cup B^{o^c}) \\ &=(\overline{A}\cap \overline{B}\cap A^{o^c})\cup(\overline{A}\cap \overline{B}\cap B^{o^c}) \\ &=(\overline{A}\cap \partial B)\cup (\overline{B}\cap \partial A) \end{align} By this post, $\overline{A\cap B}=\overline{A}\cap \overline{B}$ implies discrete space. So this is impossible in $\Bbb{R}^n$. However, we can prove generally $$ \partial(A\cap B)\subset (\bar A \cap \partial B) \cup (\partial A \cap \bar B) $$ for it is always true that $\overline{A\cap B}\subset \overline{A}\cap \overline{B}$. This can be done easily by replacing "$=$" with "$\subset $" at 2nd line of above proof and rest follows.