On the spread of topological groups containing subsets of the Sorgenfrey line

Abstract

We prove that any topological group $G$ containing a subspace $X$ of the Sorgenfrey line has spread $s(G)\ge s(X\times X)$. Under OCA, each topological group containing an uncountable subspace of the Sorgenfrey line has uncountable spread. This implies that under OCA a cometrizable topological group $G$ is cosmic if and only if it has countable spread. On the other hand, under CH there exists a cometrizable Abelian topological group that has hereditarily Lindel\"of countable power and contains an uncountable subspace of the Sorgenfrey line. This cometrizable topological group has countable spread but is not cosmic.