Modulo arithmetic of function spaces: Subset hyperspaces as quotients of function spaces

Abstract

Let $X$ be a (topological) space and $Cl(X)$ the collection of nonempty closed subsets of $X$. Given a topology on $Cl(X)$, making $Cl(X)$ a space, a (subset) hyperspace of $X$ is a subspace $\mathcal{J}\subset Cl(X)$ with an embedding $X\hookrightarrow\mathcal{J}$, $x\mapsto\{x\}$. In this note, we characterize certain hyperspaces $\mathcal{J}\subset Cl(X)$ as explicit quotient spaces of function spaces $\mathcal{F}\subset X^Y$ and discuss metrization of associated compact-subset hyperspaces in this setting. In particular, we find that any hyperspace topology containing the Vietoris topology is a quotient of a function space topology containing the topology of pointwise convergence.