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Quotient spaces
Up to this point in the text, when introducing new concepts for topological spaces
such as Hausdorffness, compactness, connectedness etc, we have relied almost exclusively on the pool of examples from section 2.2 to illustrate these concepts. In this
chapter we introduce a rather simple yet powerful method for constructing new topological spaces from given ones by means of taking quotients. This operation is well
known in set theory and we extend it here to topology by endowing the quotient set
with a natural topology - the quotient topology. The first section introduces the relevant concepts and explores some of the properties of general quotient spaces. Of the
remaining sections, each focuses on a particular set of examples of quotient spaces.
8.1. Definition and properties of quotient spaces
We start this section by reviewing quotient sets first, postponing the relevant topology for a couple of paragraphs. We introduce three mutually equivalent but slightly
different viewpoints of quotient sets. We shall use each of these approaches below for
dealing with quotient spaces.
Definition 8.1. Let X be a non-empty set.
(a) The quotient set X/ associated to a surjective function : X Y onto a
non-empty set Y is defined to be X/ = Y .
(b) The quotient set X/ associated to an equivalence relation on X is the set
of equivalence classes: (X/ ) = {[x] | x X} with [x] = {x0 X | x0 x}.
(c) The quotient set X/P associated to a partition P = {Pi | i I} of X is defined
as X/P = I.
While there are seemingly three notions of quotient sets introduced in definition
8.1, these three notions coincide if the surjection , the equivalence relation and the
partition P are properly related. Here is how one can do this:
Let : X Y be a surjective function and define the relation on X as
x1 x2
if
(x1 ) = (x2 )
Then the function (X/) (X/ ) given by x 7 [x] is a bijection of quotient sets.
P Given an equivalence relation on X, we define the partition P on X by
P = {[x] | x X}
111
112
8. QUOTIENT SPACES
where [x] is as in part (b) of definition 8.1. The function (X/ ) (X/P) given
by [x] 7 [x] (where [x] is thought of an equivalence class and as an element of the
partition P) is again a bijection between quotient sets.
P Let P = {Pi | i I} be a partition of X with Pi 6= for all i I. We
define : X Y by setting Y = I and
(x) = i
if
x Pi
The quotient sets (X/P) and (X/) are actually equal by definition 8.1.
Notice that our considerations establish the commutativity of the diagram below
in which each map is a bijection.
/ {Equivalence relations on X.}
Surjections : X Y .
O
ggg
gggg
g
g
g
gg
gggg
gs ggg
Partitions P = {Pi | i I}
of X with Pi 6= , i I.
and
if and only if
b a is even
Finally, let P be the partition of X given by P = {{1, 3, 5}, {2, 4, 6}}. Then , and
P are related as above and each of X/, X/ and X/P, is a set of two elements.
With these preliminaries out of the way, we now turn to the topology of quotient
sets. We state our definition in terms of a surjective function : X Y though this
choice is arbitrary, we could equally well use equivalence relations or partitions.
Definition 8.3. Let (X, TX ) be a topological space, let Y be a any non-empty set
and let : X Y be a surjective function.
(a) The quotient topology TX/ on Y , induced by X and (or simply the quotient
topology), is defined by
TX/ = {U Y | 1 (U ) TX }
(b) A function : (X, TX ) (Y, TY ) is called a quotient map if it has the property
that
U TY
if and only if 1 (U ) TX
It is quite straightforward to verify that TX/ is a topology on Y . Clearly the empty
set and Y belong to TX/ since 1 () = and 1 (Y ) = X. The second and third
axiom of a topology (definition 2.1) follow from the equalities
1 (iI Ui ) = iI 1 (Ui )
and
1 (iI Ui ) = iI 1 (Ui )
113
where Ui Tx/ , i I (these two equalities were the subject of exercise ??). We leave
the details to the interested reader.
Remark 8.4. While definition 8.3 seemingly defines two new terms, those of a
quotient space and of a quotient map, each of these determines the other. It is an easy
exercise to show that : (X, TX ) (Y, TY ) is a quotient map if and only if TY = TX/ .
We postpone the exploration of concrete examples of quotient spaces for the moment
and instead turn to some general properties of quotient spaces.
Proposition 8.5. Let (X, TX ) be a topological space, let : X Y be a surjective
function onto the set Y and let TX/ be the associated quotient topology.
(a) The quotient map : (X, TX ) (Y, TX, ) is continuous.
(b) The quotient topology TX/ on Y is the finest topology (see definition 2.3) for
which is continuous. Said differently, if TY is any topology on Y for which
: (X, TX ) (Y, TY ) continuous, then TY TX, .
(c) If f : (X, TX ) (Y, TY ) is a continuous surjection that is additionally also
either open or closed, then f is a quotient map.
Proof. (a) Immediate from definition 8.3.
(b) If TY is a topology on Y for which the map : X Y is continuous, then for
every U TY the set 1 (U ) belongs to TX . Thus any such U automatically lies in
TX/ showing that the quotient topology TX/ is the finest topology on Y for which
is continuous.
(c) Let f : (X, TX ) (Y, TY ) be a continuous surjection and let U TY be any
set. By continuity of f , f 1 (U ) lies in TX . Suppose that f is also an open map and
that U TY is a set such that f 1 (U ) TX . The openness property of f implies then
that the set f (f 1 (U )) = U is open in Y . Thus TY = {U Y | f 1 (U ) TX } is the
quotient topology associated to X and f .
If f is closed rather than open and if U Y is again a set with f 1 (U ) TX , then
X f 1 (U ) is a closed set and hence so is f (X f 1 (U )) = Y U . Thus U is again
an open set and we arrive at the same conclusion.
We next investigate when functions on a quotient space are continuous. For this
purpose, let (X, TX ) be topological space, let : X Y be a surjection and assume
that Y is given the quotient topology TX/ . Let (Z, TZ ) be another topological space
and let f : Y Z be a function. Associated to f is the function f : X Z defined
by
f = f
Notice that if x1 , x2 1 (y) then f(x1 ) = f(x2 ), a fact that we will express by saying
that f is constant on 1 (y) for each y Y .
Conversely, given a function f : X Z that is constant on 1 (y) for each y Y ,
we can define f : Y Z as
f (y) = f(xy ) for any choice xy 1 (y)
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8. QUOTIENT SPACES
115
||x||
; x 6= 0
ln 1||x||
g1 (x) =
0
; x=0
and let g2 : Rn S n {(1, 0, ..., 0} be homeomorphism (see exercise ??)
2y1
2y2
2yn
||y||2 1
,
, ...,
,
g2 (y1 , ..., yn ) =
||y||2 + 1 ||y||2 + 1
||y||2 + 1 ||y||2 + 1
Write Dn /S n1 = (Dn S n1 ){s} where s Dn /S n1 represents the image of S n1 in
Dn /S n1 under the quotient map : Dn Dn /S n1 . Then we define f : Dn /S n1
S n as
; x Dn S n1
g2 (g1 (x))
f (x) =
(0, ..., 0, 1)
; x=s
Clearly f is a bijection so we only need to verify that it is continuous and open. To
show that f is continuous, it suffices to show that f = f : Dn Rn is continuous
(according to Theorem 8.6). From its definition, it is evident that f is continuous
at all points x Int(Dn ) so we are left with verifying that this remains true for
x0 S n1 . Noting that f(x0 ) = (0, 0, ..., 0, 1) for each x0 S n1 , let V S n be
any neighborhood of (0, .., 0, 1). Continuity of f at x0 will be demonstrated if we can
find a neighborhood U of x0 in Dn such that f(U ) V . Firstly, find an r > 0 such
that B(0,...,0,1) (r) S n V . Without loss of generality we can assume that r 2 for
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8. QUOTIENT SPACES
; t X1
(cos 0 t, sin 0 t)
g(t) =
(cos (t + 1), sin (t + 1))
; t X2
0
0
where we use 0 to denote 0 = 3.14159... so as to distinguish it from the quotient
map. Note that g induces a function g : X1 f X2 S 1 since g(0) = g(f (0)) = (1, 0)
and g(1) = g(f (1)) = (1, 0). According to Theorem 8.6, to show that g is continuous
it suffices to show that g is continuous. The continuity of g however, is immediate
and follows from Lemma 3.13 after observing that the subsets X1 and X2 are closed in
X1 t X2 . Finally, g is a bijection since it has in inverse function, namely
1
; y0
0 arccos x X1
1
g (x, y) =
1
arccos x X2
; y0
0
Since S 1 is compact and since X1 f X2 is Hausdorff (which we leave as an easy
exercise), it follows from Corollary 6.10 that g is a homeomorphism.
Example 8.12. Consider the Euclidean line (R, TEu ) and let A R be the subset
of all integers A = Z. Using the notation from Construction 8.8, we form the quotient
space R/Z. Visually, we should think of R/Z as having been gotten by collapsing
Z R to a single point, as in Figure 1. This visual representation of R/Z is not unlike
that of the Hawaiian earrings H from Example 2.20 (also shown in Figure 1). Recall
that H is the union
n=1 Cn of the circles
Cn = {(x, y) R2 | (x
1 2
1
) + y2 = 2 }
n
n
h2, 1i
117
(x 1)2 + y 2 = 1
h1, 0i
(x 12 )2 + y 2 =
1
4
h0, 1i
h4, 5i
h1, 2i
h3, 4i
h2, 3i
(a)
(b)
118
8. QUOTIENT SPACES
Example 8.13. Consider again the Euclidean line (R, TEu ) and let A R be the
set of rational number Q. By considering the quotient space R/Q, we will demonstrate
that the Hausdorff property of a topological space may disappear when passing to one
of its quotient space.
Thus, to see that R/Q is not Hausdorff, let x, y R be any two distinct irrational
elements in R and let (x), (y) be their images in R/Q under the quotient map
: R R/Q. Note that (x) 6= (y). Suppose that U(x) and U(y) are neighborhoods
of (x) and (y) in R/Q. Then Vx = 1 (U(x) ) and Vy = 1 (U(y) ) are neighborhoods
of x and y in R and as such, both contain a rational number, say qx Vx Q and
qy Vy Q. But then we can conclude that (qx ) U(x) and (qy ) U(y) and since
clearly (qx ) = (qy ), we find that U(x) and U(y) cannot be disjoint. Accordingly,
R/Q is not Hausdorff even though R clearly is.
8.2. Surfaces as quotient spaces of polygons
Definition 8.14. Given an integer n N {0}, a n-dimensional topological manifold (or n-manifold for short) is a second-countable, Hausdorff space (X, TX ) in which
every point p X has a neighborhood homeomorphic to Rn (with the Euclidean
topology). An n-manifold with n = 2 is called a surface.
A (t, s) = (tm sp , tn sq )
associated to the matrix A from (8.1). The lens space L(p, q) is the identification space
of the disjoint union U t V with respect to the partition P given by
n
o