[Math] Showing that a mapping of a topological space into a product space is continuous.

general-topologyproduct-space

Let $(Y,T)$ and $(X_i,T_i)$, $i = 1,…,n$ be topological spaces. Further for each $i$, let $f_i$ be a mapping of $(Y,T)$ into $(X_i, T_i)$. Prove that the mapping $f: (Y,T) \rightarrow \prod (X_i,T_i)$, given by $f(y) = <f_1(y), f_2(y), …, f_n(y)>$ is continuous iff each $f_i$ is continuous.

If $p_i$ is the projection mapping I know that $f_i = p_i \circ f$ is continuous because it is the composition of two continuous functions, but in the other direction I'm not sure if my answer is right. I say:

Since $f_i = p_i \circ f$ then $p^{-1}_i \circ f_i = p^{-1}_i \circ (p_i \circ f) = f$, which is the composition of two continuous functions. What I'm confused about is whether or not $p^{-1}_i \circ (p_i \circ f) =(p^{-1}_i \circ p_i) \circ f = f$.

Best Answer

Let $U$ be an open set in $\prod(X_i, T_i)$. We want to show that $f^{-1}(U)$ is open.

We know that the box topology is finer (i.e. has more open sets) than the product topology. This is because even in the box topology, every projection mapping $p_i$ is continuous, and because the product topology is defined to be the coarsest topology where this holds.

So $U$ is an open set in the box topology as well. Thus $U$ is the union of sets $V$ where each $V$ is the product of open sets $A_1 \times A_2 \times \cdots \times A_n$ ($A_k \in T_k$). Thus we have $$f^{-1}(V) = f_1^{-1}(A_1) \cap \cdots \cap f_n^{-1}(A_n)$$

So $f^{-1}(V)$ is open. Because $f^{-1}(U)$ is the union of those sets for every $V$, $f^{-1}(U)$ is open.