Wallman compactifications and Wallman realcompactifications

Abstract

In 1964 Frink [8] generalized Wallman's method [17] of compactification and asked the question: “Is every Hausdorff compactification of a Tychonoff space a Wallman compactification?”. This problem, which is as yet unsolved, has led to the discovery of a number of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for a Hausdorff compactification to be Wallman; (see Alò and Shapiro [2], [3], Banasĉhewski [6], Njåstad [13] and Steiner [15]). Recently Alò and Shapiro [4], [5] have generalized the Wallman procedure to discuss what they call Z*-realcompact spaces and Z*-realcompactification n(Z) corresponding to a countably productive (c.p.) normal base Z on X. Some further work has been done by Steiner and Steiner [14].