Topologies on abelian groups and a topological five-lemma

Abstract

In this article we establish some results that allow to deduce the continuity of homomorphisms of (topological) abelian groups from commutative diagrams. In particular, we present a new topological version of the classical Five-Lemma. These results aim to be applied in duality results between cohomology groups in arithmetical contexts. In such a topological-arithmetical context, Pontryagin duality plays a central role and it becomes necessary to know whether certain homomorphisms are continuous.