Arbitrary Union of Meagre Open Sets – Topological Analysis

fa.functional-analysisgn.general-topology

Let $X$ be a topological space. A subset $M$ of $X$ is called meagre (or of first category) if it is covered by the union of a countable family of closed subsets of $X$ with empty interior.

Can you help me to find a proof of the following theorem?

"Arbitrary union of meagre open subsets of $X$ is meagre."

The case of countable unions is easy because $\mathbb{N} \times \mathbb{N}$ is countable. The case in which $X$ is a Baire space (e.g. a complete metric space) is obvious because all open meagre sets are empty.

Thanks.

Best Answer

First, consider Gerhard's easier special case, where the open sets are disjoint.

Claim. The union of an arbitrary family of pairwise disjoint open meager sets is meager.

Proof. Suppose that $U_i$ are pairwise disjoint and meager, so that $U_i\subset\bigcup_n C_n^i$, where each $C_n^i$ is closed and nowhere dense. Let $C_n=\bigcup_i (C_n^i\cap U_i)$. This set is not dense on any nonempty open set, because if it were dense on some nonempty $V$, then it would be dense on some nonempty $V\cap U_i$, but that is impossible since by the disjointness hypothesis only $C_n^i$ contributes points to this set, and it is nowhere dense. Thus, the closure of $C_n$ is closed and nowhere dense, and $\bigcup_i U_i$ is contained within $\bigcup_n C_n$, since each $U_i$ is contained within and is in fact equal to $\bigcup_n (C_n^i\cap U_i)$. So $\bigcup_i U_i$ is meager. QED

A similar idea works in general, by well-ordering the family of open sets.

Theorem. An arbitrary union of open meager sets is meager.

Proof. Suppose we have a family of open meager sets $U_\alpha$, indexed by ordinals $\alpha$, so that for each $\alpha$ we have $U_\alpha\subset\bigcup_n C_\alpha^n$ for some closed nowhere dense sets $C_\alpha^n$. Let $$C_n=\bigcup_\alpha [C_\alpha^n\cap U_\alpha-\bigcup_{\beta\lt\alpha}U_\beta].$$ Note that these $C_n$ cover the union $U=\bigcup_\alpha U_\alpha$, since any $a\in U$ is in some least $U_\alpha$ and so it gets into some $C_\alpha^n\cap U_\alpha$ without being in $\bigcup_{\beta\lt\alpha}U_\beta$, and consequently is in $C_n$. Also, each $C_n$ is nowhere dense, because if $C_n$ is dense on some nonempty set $V$, then there is some least $\alpha$ containing members of $V$, and so we reduce to nonempty $V\subset U_\alpha-\bigcup_{\beta\lt\alpha}U_\beta$; thus, $C_n$ would be dense on $V$ inside $U_\alpha-\bigcup_{\beta\lt\alpha}U_\alpha$. But the only members of this set in $C_n$ are contributed by $C_\alpha^n$, which is nowhere dense. So the closure of $C_n$ is nowhere dense, and so $U$ is meager, as desired. QED