Configuration space of ordered points

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Definition

Suppose X is a topological space and n is a natural number. The configuration space of ordered points Fn(X) is defined as follows:

  • As a set, it is the set of ordered n-tuples of distinct points of X.
  • The topology is given as follows. First, note that Fn(X) is the subset of Xn comprising all n-tuples where no two coordinates are equal, i.e., it is the complement of the fat diagonal. We first give the product topology on Xn and then give Fn(X) the subspace topology arising from that.

Note that the term configuration space is typically used for the configuration space of unordered points Cn(X), which is the quotient of this space under the equivalence relation induced by the action of the symmetric group Sn by coordinate permutation.