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Characterized subgroups of topological abelian groups

A subgroup $H$ of a topological abelian group $X$ is said to be characterized by a sequence $\mathbf v =(v_n)$ of characters of $X$ if $H=\{x\in X:v_n(x)\to 0\ \text{in}\ \mathbb T\}$. We study the basic properties of characterized subgroups in the general setting, extending results known in the compact case. For a better description, we isolate various types of characterized subgroups. Moreover, we introduce the relevant class of autochacaracterized groups (namely, the groups that are characterized subgroups of themselves by means of a sequence of non-null characters); in the case of locally compact abelian groups, these are proved to be exactly the non-compact ones. As a by-product of our results, we find a complete description of the characterized subgroups of discrete abelian groups.