On hereditarily normal topological groups

Abstract

In this paper we investigate hereditarily normal topological groups and their subspaces. We prove that every compact subspace of a hereditarily normal topological group is metrizable. To prove this statement we first show that a hereditarily normal topological group with a non-trivial convergent sequence has $G_\delta$-diagonal. This implies, in particular, that every countably compact subset of a hereditarily normal topological group with a non-trivial convergent sequence is metrizable. Another corollary is that under the Proper Forcing Axiom, every countably compact subset of a hereditarily normal topological group is metrizable.