The compact-open topology on the homeomorphism group of a surface without boundary is minimal

Abstract

We show that the homeomorphism group of a surface without boundary does not admit a Hausdorff group topology strictly coarser than the compact-open topology. In combination with known automatic continuity results, this implies that the compact-open topology is the unique Hausdorff separable group topology on the group if the surface is closed or the complement in a closed surface of either a finite set or the union of a finite set and a Cantor set.