Hemicontinuity


In mathematics, upper hemicontinuity and lower hemicontinuity are extensions of the notions of upper and lower semicontinuity of single-valued functions to set-valued functions.
A set-valued function that is both upper and lower hemicontinuous is said to be continuous in an analogy to the property of the same name for single-valued functions.
To explain both notions, consider a sequence a of points in a domain, and a sequence b of points in the range. We say that b corresponds to a if each point in b is contained in the image of the corresponding point in a.
  • Upper hemicontinuity requires that, for any convergent sequence a in a domain, and for any convergent sequence b that corresponds to a, the image of the limit of a contains the limit of b.
  • Lower hemicontinuity requires that, for any convergent sequence a in a domain, and for any point x in the image of the limit of a, there exists a sequence b that corresponds to a subsequence of a, that converges to x.

    Examples

The image on the right shows a function that is not lower hemicontinuous at x. To see this, let a be a sequence that converges to x from the left. The image of x is a vertical line that contains some point. But every sequence b that corresponds to a is contained in the bottom horizontal line, so it cannot converge to y. In contrast, the function is upper hemicontinuous everywhere. For example, considering any sequence a that converges to x from the left or from the right, and any corresponding sequence b, the limit of b is contained in the vertical line that is the image of the limit of a.
The image on the left shows a function that is not upper hemicontinuous at x. To see this, let a be a sequence that converges to x from the right. The image of a contains vertical lines, so there exists a corresponding sequence b in which all elements are bounded away from f. The image of the limit of a contains a single point f, so it does not contain the limit of b. In contrast, that function is lower hemicontinuous everywhere. For example, for any sequence a that converges to x, from the left or from the right, f contains a single point, and there exists a corresponding sequence b that converges to f.

Definitions

Upper hemicontinuity

A set-valued function is said to be upper hemicontinuous at a point if, for every open with there exists a neighbourhood of such that for all is a subset of

Lower hemicontinuity

A set-valued function is said to be lower hemicontinuous at the point
if for every open set intersecting there exists a neighbourhood of such that intersects for all .

Continuity

If a set-valued function is both upper hemicontinuous and lower hemicontinuous, it is said to be continuous.

Properties

Upper hemicontinuity

Sequential characterization

As an example, look at the image at the right, and consider sequence a in the domain that converges to x. Then, any sequence b that satisfies the requirements converges to some point in f.

Closed graph theorem

The graph of a set-valued function is the set defined by
The domain of is the set of all such that is not empty.

Lower hemicontinuity

Sequential characterization

Open graph theorem

A set-valued function is said to have if the set
is open in for every If values are all open sets in then is said to have.
If has an open graph then has open upper and lower sections and if has open lower sections then it is lower hemicontinuous.

Operations Preserving Hemicontinuity

Set-theoretic, algebraic and topological operations on set-valued functions usually preserve the type of continuity. But this should be taken with appropriate care since, for example, there exists a pair of lower hemicontinuous set-valued functions whose intersection is not lower hemicontinuous.
This can be fixed upon strengthening continuity properties: if one of those lower hemicontinuous multifunctions has open graph then their intersection is again lower hemicontinuous.

Function Selections

Crucial to set-valued analysis are the investigation of single-valued selections and approximations to set-valued functions.
Typically lower hemicontinuous set-valued functions admit single-valued selections.
Likewise, upper hemicontinuous maps admit approximations.

Other concepts of continuity

The upper and lower hemicontinuity might be viewed as usual continuity:
.
Using lower and upper Hausdorff uniformity we can also define the so-called upper and lower semicontinuous maps in the sense of Hausdorff.