Singletons in the $\sigma$-algebra generated by clopen sets of a Stone space

boolean-algebrafiltersgeneral-topologymeasure-theory

Let $A$ be a Boolean algebra and let $Ult(A)$ be its Stone space, that is, the set of all ultrafilters on $A$. It is well known that $C=\{\{u\in Ult(A)\!:a\in u\}\!:a\in A\}$ is an algebra of sets isomorphic to $A$ and the elements of $C$ are exactly the clopen sets of the topology on $Ult(A)$ generated by $C$.

Questions: Let $B$ be the $\sigma$-algebra of sets generated by $C$. Does $\{\{u\}\!:u\in Ult(A)\}\subseteq B$ necessarily hold true? If not, is there any standard name for the ultrafilters $u$ satisfying $\{u\}\in B$? Is there any characterization of Boolean algebras $A$ for which $\{\{u\}\!:u\in Ult(A)\}\subseteq B$?

My attempt: A candidate counterexample is the Boolean algebra $A=\mathcal{P}(\omega)$. Then $Ult(A)$ is $\beta\omega$, the Stone-Čech compactification of the integers. It is known that $\beta\omega$ is not first countable, see here (statement 7A). More precisely, if $u\in\beta\omega\setminus\omega$ then $u$ does not have a countable local base, hence $\{u\}$ is not a countable intersection of clopen sets. However, it is not clear to me if this implies $\{u\}\notin B$.

Best Answer

If $A$ is countable, then $\{u\} = \bigcap_{a \in u} \{u \in Ult(A) : a \in u\}$. So we should have $\{\{u\} : u \in Ult(A)\} \subseteq B$.

If $A$ is allowed to be uncountable, I think the following would be a counterexample. Let $A$ be freely generated by uncountably many generators $\{a_i\}_{i \in I}$. As you mentioned, the clopens of the Stone space $C$ are given by the elements of $A$ in the sense that for $a \in A$ we have a clopen $[a] = \{u \in Ult(A): a \in u\}$. Any non-empty element $V$ in the $\sigma$-algebra $B$ generated by the Stone space $C$, is a countable Boolean combination of clopens. Every element in $A$ is given by some finite Boolean combination of generators. In particular there will be only countably many generators that are relevant for $V$. Since we had uncountably many generators, we can find some generator $a$ that does not occur anywhere in $V$. So there will be at least two distinct ultrafilters in $V$, one that contains $a$ and one that contains $\neg a$. We can do this for every (non-empty) element of the $\sigma$-algebra, so there will be in fact no singletons in the $\sigma$-algebra generated by the Stone space of $A$.