A paracompact space is a space in which every open cover has a locally finite refinement.
A compact space is a space in which every open cover has a finite subcover.
Why must the product of a compact and a paracompact space be paracompact?
I really have very little intuition about how to go about this question, so any hints or a proof would be greatly appreciated.
Best Answer
The key idea is indeed to use the "tube lemma", as d.t. did in his solution, but there is a small gap in his solution.
(This proof does not assume prior knowledge of tube lemma)
Let $X$ be paracompact and $Y$ be compact. Let $\mathcal{A}$ be an open cover of $X\times Y$.
(Tube lemma part) First fix $x\in X$, and for each $y \in Y$, find $A\in\mathcal{A}$ and basis element $U\times V$ such that $(x,y)\in U\times V\subseteq A$. As $y$ ranges in $Y$, these various $U\times V$ cover $\{x\}\times Y$, which is compact. Thus there exists finitely many $U_1\times V_1 \subseteq A_1,\dots,U_n\times V_n\subseteq A_n$ that cover $\{x\}\times Y$. Let $U_x = U_1\cap \dots \cap U_n$. For later use, let $\mathcal{A}_x=\{A_1,...,A_n\}$.
Now, $\{U_x\}_{x\in X}$ is an open cover of $X$. Using paracompactness, there is an locally finite open refinement $\mathcal{B}$ that covers $X$. For purpose of notation, suppose $B_i,i\in I$ are the elements of $\mathcal{B}$. Using the refinement property, for each $i\in I$, pick $x_i\in X$ such that $B_i\subseteq U_{x_i}$.
Consider the open refinement $\mathcal{C}$ of $\mathcal{A}$ given by
$$\mathcal{C_{x_i}}:=\{A\cap (B_i\times Y)\}_{A\in \mathcal{A}_{x_i}},\quad \mathcal{C}:=\bigcup_{i\in I}\mathcal{C}_{x_i}$$
To prove that this is a cover, consider any $(x,y)\in X\times Y$. First $x$ is in some $B_i$. Since $\mathcal{C}_{x_i}$ covers $B_i \times Y$, $(x,y)$ is covered by $\mathcal{C}$.
To prove that it is locally finite, consider any $(x,y)\in X\times Y$. First there exists an open neighbourhood $U\subseteq X$ of $x$ that intersects only finitely many elements of $\mathcal{B}$, say $B_1,...,B_m$. Then $U\times Y$ is the desired neighbourhood of $(x,y)$ that only intersects finitely many elements of $\mathcal{C}$ as it can only intersect elements from $\mathcal{C}_{x_1},...,\mathcal{C}_{x_m}$, each of which is a finite collection.