1. Introduction
At the Prague Topological Symposium in 1981, V.V. Fedorchuk [
1] posed the following general problem in the theory of covariant functors, which determined a new direction for research in the field of Topology:
- Let  be some geometric property and F be a covariant functor. If a topological space X has the property , then whether  has the same property , or vice versa, whether  has the property , does it follow that the topological space X has the property  as well? 
In our case,  is some tightness-type property, X is a topological -space, and F is the functor of the G-permutation degree .
In [
1,
2] V.V. Fedorchuk and V.V. Filippov investigated the functor of the 
G-permutation degree and proved that this functor is a normal functor in the category of compact spaces and their continuous mappings.
In recent research, a number of authors have investigated the behaviour of certain cardinal invariants under the influence of various covariant functors. For example, in [
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8] the authors investigated several cardinal invariants under the influence of weakly normal, seminormal, and normal functors.
In [
4,
5], the authors discussed certain cardinal and geometric properties of the space of the permutation degree 
. They proved that if the product 
 has some Lindelǒf-type properties, then the space 
 has these properties as well. Moreover, they showed that the functor 
 preserves both the homotopy and retraction of topological spaces. In addition, they proved that if the spaces 
X and 
Y are homotopically equivalent, then the spaces 
 and 
 are homotopically equivalent as well. As a result, it has been proven that the functor 
 is a covariant homotopy functor.
The current paper is devoted to the investigation of cardinal invariants such as the 
T-tightness, set tightness, functional tightness, mini-tightness (or weak functional tightness), and other topological properties of the space of permutation degree. We mention here that tightness-type properties of function spaces have been studied previously in [
9,
10].
The concepts of functional tightness and mini-tightness (or weak functional tightness) of a topological space were first introduced and studied by A.V. Arkhangel’skii in [
11]. As it turned out, cardinal invariants such as mini-tightness and functional tightness are similar to each other in many ways, and for many natural and classical cases they even coincide. Moreover, there is an example of a topological space with countable mini-tightness and uncountable functional tightness; see [
12].
In [
13], the action of closed and 
R-quotient mappings on functional tightness was investigated. The authors proved that 
R-quotient mappings do not increase functional tightness. Furthermore, in [
13] the authors proved that the functional tightness of the product of two locally compact spaces does not exceed the product of the functional tightness of those spaces.
Throughout this paper, all spaces referred to are topological spaces and  is an infinite cardinal number; furthermore, regular spaces need not be .
  2. Definitions and Notations
The following are definitions and notions needed in the rest of this paper.
Definition 1 (see [
14])
. Let A be a subset of a topological space X; the tightness of 
A with respect to 
X is the cardinal numberIf , we briefly write  instead of . The tightness 
of X is defined as . Definition 2 ([
15]; see as well [
16,
17])
. Let X be a topological space; then, the set tightness at a point 
, denoted by , is the smallest cardinal number κ such that whenever , where , there exists a family γ of subsets of C such that  and . The set tightness 
of X is defined as . It is clear that for any topological space X we have  and .
Definition 3 ([
17,
18])
. For a topological space X, the T-tightness 
of X, denoted by , is the smallest cardinal number κ such that whenever  is an increasing sequence of closed subsets of X with  then  is closed. Let  be an infinite cardinal and let X and Y be topological spaces. A mapping  is said to be κ-continuous if for every subspace A of X such that  the restriction  is continuous. A mapping  is said to be strictly κ-continuous if for every subspace A of X with  there exists a continuous mapping  such that .
Definition 4 ([
11]; see as well [
13,
19,
20])
. The functional tightness  of a space X is the smallest infinite cardinal number κ such that every κ-continuous real-valued function on X is continuous. In [
13], the following theorem was proven:
Theorem 1. If X is a locally compact space, then .
 Note that per Theorem 1,  for every compact space X and every .
Definition 5 ([
11])
. The weak functional tightness (or minitightness) 
 of a space X is the smallest infinite cardinal number κ such that every strictly κ-continuous real-valued function on X is continuous. Clearly, every strictly 
-continuous mapping is 
-continuous. Therefore, for any topological space 
X we have
      
In [
19], the following theorems were provided:
Theorem 2 ([
19], Theorem 2.14)
. If X is a locally compact space, then, for every space Y, Theorem 3 ([
19], Theorem 2.7, Corollary 2.8)
. For any two spaces X and Y,If Y is first countable, . The set of all non-empty closed subsets of a topological space 
X is denoted by 
. The family of all sets of the form
      
      where 
 are open subsets of 
X generates a base of the topology on the set 
. This topology is called the 
Vietoris topology. The set 
 with the Vietoris topology is called the 
exponential space or 
hyperspace of a space 
X. We put [
2]
      
Let  denote the permutation group of the set , and let G be a subgroup of . The group G acts on the n-th power  of a space X as permutation of coordinates. Two points  are considered to be G-equivalent if there exists a permutation  such that . This relation is called the symmetric G-equivalence relation on X. The G-equivalence class of an element  is denoted by . The sets of all orbits of actions of the group G is denoted by . Thus, points of the space  are finite subsets (equivalence classes) of the product .
Consider the quotient mapping 
 defined by
      
      and endow the sets 
 with the quotient topology. This space is called the 
space of the n–G-permutation degree, or simply the 
space of the G-permutation degree of space 
X.
Let 
 be a continuous mapping. For an equivalence class 
, we can say that
      
	  In this way, we have the mapping 
. It is easy to check that the mapping 
 constructed in this way is a normal functor in the category of compacta. This functor is called the 
functor of the G-permutation degree.
When , we omit the index or prefix G in all the above definitions. In particular, we speak about the space  of the permutation degree, the functor , and the quotient mapping .
Equivalence relations by which one obtains spaces  and  are called the symmetric and hypersymmetric equivalence relations, respectively.
While any symmetrically equivalent points in  are hypersymmetrically equivalent, in general, the converse is not correct. For example, while for  points  are hypersymmetrically equivalent, they are not symmetrically equivalent.
The 
G-symmetric equivalence class 
 uniquely determines the hypersymmetric equivalence class 
 containing it. Thus, we have the mapping
      
      representing the functor 
 as the factor functor of the functor 
 [
1,
2].
  3. Results
The functor of the G-permutation degree  preserves the -continuity of the mappings, i.e., the following holds.
Theorem 4. If  is a κ-continuous mapping, then the mapping  is κ-continuous as well.
 Proof.  Consider an arbitrary subset  of , such that . We can prove that the restriction of the mapping  onto the set  is continuous.
If we say
        
        where 
 is defined as
        
        for any 
, 
, and 
, it is clear that 
 and 
. Take an arbitrary element 
 from 
; then,
        
		Suppose 
W is a neighborhood of the orbit 
 in 
. Per the definition of the quotient mapping, there exist neighborhoods 
 of the points 
 such that 
. In this case, we have 
. Because 
 and 
, we find that 
 is continuous. By continuity of 
f on 
M, there exist neighborhoods 
 of the points 
 satisfying 
 for all 
. Then,
        
		This means that the restriction 
 is continuous at the point 
. As 
 and 
 were arbitrary, the theorem is proven. □
 Theorem 5. For every topological space X we have  Proof.  Let  and  satisfying . Then, we have . This means that there exists a family  such that  and . For every , we can choose a set  such that . Let  be a family obtained in this way. It is clear that  and ; thus, by the closedness of the mapping , we have . This means that . Theorem 5 is therefore proven. □
 Theorem 6. If X is a regular space, then .
 Proof.  Let ,  and . By virtue of the closedness of , . Let x be an isolated point of . Clearly, . Because , there exists a family  such that  and . The set  is closed and discrete in ; hence, . Due to the regularity of X, there exists a closed neighbourhood U of x such that . Let ; then, it is clear that  and . Let . By the closedness of , we have ; however, clearly  and . This means that . Theorem 6 is therefore proven. □
 Proposition 1. For any topological space X, we have .
 Proof.  Assume that . This means that for every increasing sequence  of closed subsets of  with , we find that  is closed. Because the quotient mapping  is closed onto mapping, it follows immediately that  is an increasing sequence of closed subsets of  and that  is closed. This means that . Proposition 1 is therefore proven. □
 Theorem 7. If X is a regular space, then .
 Proof.  According to Proposition 1, it suffices to show the following equality: .
Assume that  and  is an increasing sequence of closed subsets of  such that . Put  and suppose that there exists a point .
Let  for every ; the family  is an increasing sequence of closed subsets of . Because  is finite, we find that the set  is closed in .
By regularity of X (and hence ), there exist two disjoint open sets U and V in  such that  and .
Let 
 for every 
. It is clear that 
 and 
 . The family 
 is an increasing sequence of closed subsets of 
. Because 
, the set 
 must be closed, and per the continuity of 
,
        
		However, this is impossible because
        
		This proves that 
F is closed, and thus 
. Theorem 7 is therefore proven. □
 If, in the above theorem, the space X is Hausdorff, then the mapping  is perfect and the assumption about the regularity of X could be weakened.
Corollary 1. If X is Hausdorff and , then .
 Corollary 2. If X is a locally compact Hausdorff space, then .
 Proposition 2. Let X be any topological space; then,
- (a) 
- ; 
- (b) 
- . 
 Proof.  Let f be a -continuous (strictly -continuous) real-valued function on  and  (resp. ). Then, the composition  is a -continuous (strictly -continuous) real-valued function on . In both cases, we find that g is continuous. By continuity of  and , it follows that f is continuous; hence,  (). Proposition 2 is therefore proven. □
 From Proposition 2 and from Theorems 1 and 2, we have the following statement.
Corollary 3. Let X be a locally compact space; then,
- (a) 
- ; 
- (b) 
- . 
 It follows immediately from Theorem 3 that:
Corollary 4. For every first countable space X, .
 Let us now recall the earlier definitions.
The weak tightness  of a space X is the smallest (infinite) cardinal  such that the following condition is fulfilled.
If a set  is not closed in X, then there is a point , a set , and a set  for which , , and .
We can say that  is a set of type  in X if there is a family  of open sets in X such that  and . A set  is called κ-placed in X if for each point  there is a set P of type  in X such that .
Put ;  is called the Hewitt–Nachbin number of X. We can say that X is a space if .
Proposition 3. Let X be a compact space; then, .
 Proof.  It is known (see [
14]) that, for any Tychonoff space 
X, the following relations hold:
        
		Thus, we have
        
		Proposition 3 is therefore proven. □
 Corollary 5. Let X be a compact and separable space; then, , i.e., the space  is a -space.