Banalytic spaces and characterization of Polish groups

Abstract

A topological space is defined to be banalytic (resp. analytic) if it is the image of a Polish space under a Borel (resp. continuous) map. A regular topological space is analytic if and only if it is banalytic and cosmic. Each (regular) banalytic space has countable spread (and under PFA is hereditarily Lindelöf). Applying banalytic spaces to topological groups, we prove that for a Baire topological group $X$ the following conditions are equivalent: (1) $X$ is Polish, (2) $X$ is analytic, (3) $X$ is banalytic and cosmic, (4) $X$ is banalytic and has countable pseudocharacter. Under PFA the conditions (1)--(4) are equivalent to the banalycity of $X$. The conditions (1)--(3) remain equivalent for any Baire semitopological group.

10 pages