Cartesian closed topological hulls

Abstract

It is shown in this paper that if a concrete category <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="German upper A"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="fraktur">A</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\mathfrak {A}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> admits embedding as a full finitely productive subcategory of a cartesian closed topological (CCT) category, then <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="German upper A"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="fraktur">A</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\mathfrak {A}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> admits such embedding into a smallest CCT category, its CCT hull. This hull is characterized internally by means of density properties and externally by means of a universal property. The problem is posed of whether every topological category has a CCT hull.