Totally disconnected semigroup compactifications of topological groups

Abstract

We introduce the notion of an introverted Boolean algebra $\cal B$ of closed-and-open subsets of a topological group $G$, show that the associated Stone space $(\nu_{\cal B} G, \nu_{\cal B})$ is a totally disconnected semigroup compactification of $G$, and show that every totally disconnected semigroup compactification of $G$ takes this form. We identify and study the universal totally disconnected semigroup compactification, the universal totally disconnected semitopological semigroup compactification and the universal totally disconnected group compactification of $G$. Our main results are obtained independently of Gelfand theory and well-known properties of the (typically non-totally disconnected) universal compactifications $G^{LUC}$, $G^{WAP}$ and $G^{AP}$, though we do employ Gelfand theory to clarify the relationship between these familiar universal compactifications and their totally disconnected counterparts.