On order structure of the set of one-point Tychonoff extensions of a locally compact space

If a Tychonoff space X is dense in a Tychonoff space Y, then Y is called a Tychonoff extension of X. Two Tychonoff extensions Y1 and Y2 of X are said to be equivalent, if there exists a homeomorphism which keeps X pointwise fixed. This defines an equivalence relation on the class of all Tychonoff extensions of X. We identify those extensions of X which belong to the same equivalence classes. For two Tychonoff extensions Y1 and Y2 of X, we write Y2⩽Y1, if there exists a continuous function which keeps X pointwise fixed. This is a partial order on the set of all (equivalence classes of) Tychonoff extensions of X. If a Tychonoff extension Y of X is such that Y\X is a singleton, then Y is called a one-point extension of X. Let T(X) denote the set of all one-point extensions of X. Our purpose is to study the order structure of the partially ordered set (T(X),⩽). For a locally compact space X, we define an order-anti-isomorphism from T(X) onto the set of all nonempty closed subsets of βX\X. We consider various sets of one-point extensions, including the set of all one-point locally compact extensions of X, the set of all one-point Lindelöf extensions of X, the set of all one-point pseudocompact extensions of X, and the set of all one-point Čech-complete extensions of X, among others. We study how these sets of one-point extensions are related, and investigate the relation between their order structure, and the topology of subspaces of βX\X. We find some lower bounds for cardinalities of some of these sets of one-point extensions, and in a concluding section, we show how some of our results may be applied to obtain relations between the order structure of certain subfamilies of ideals of C∗(X), partially ordered with inclusion, and the topology of subspaces of βX\X. We leave some problems open.