Suppose I have an infinite discrete topological space $X$ of cardinality $\kappa$. Then I know some things about the Stone-Cech compactification, $\beta X$: it is Hausdorff and compact but not sequentially compact, has a basis of clopen sets, etc. My question is the following: is there a "nice" characterization of the spaces $Y$ which are homeomorphic to the Stone-Cech compactification of a discrete space? Certainly, the term "nice" is vague; I have in mind characterizations only using terms from a standard text on point-set topology, but I would consider as an answer to this question really any nontrivial characterization of Stone-Cech compactifications. 


I am particularly interested in nice characterizations that require some set theory, such as "assuming $V=L$, $Y$ is homeomorphic to $\beta X$ for some discrete $X$ iff $Y$ is compact, not sequentially compact, and has a basis of clopen sets" (although I'm certain that statement is extremely false), and I would especially like to know whether there are two incompatible strong set-theoretic assumptions which yield distinct nice characterizations. The only relevant result I know is along these lines: in 1963, Parovicenko showed that assuming CH, the only Parovicenko space (which has a long but elementary definition\*) is $\beta\mathbb{N}-\mathbb{N}$; this can be molded into a characterization of $\beta\mathbb{N}$, assuming CH, but says nothing about whether a space is the Stone-Cech compactification of a discrete space of uncountable cardinality. In 1978, van Douwen and van Mill showed that CH was necessary. One more concrete sub-question I have, then, is:


Does Parovicenko's result generalize in some way to characterize Stone-Cech compactifications of larger discrete spaces? If so, how much set theory is needed - is GCH enough?


(One very tempting way to try to rephrase Parovicenko's result is to define "$\kappa$-Parovicenko space" by taking the definition of Parovicenko space and replacing the "weight $c$" condition with "weight $2^\kappa$," and then claiming that - assuming GCH - every $\kappa$-Parovicenko space is homeomorphic to $\beta X-X$ for a discrete space $X$ of cardinality $\kappa$. However, I see absolutely no reason to believe this. A sub-subquestion: is this statement obviously *false*?)




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\*For completeness, a Parovicenko space is a topological space which is compact and Hausdorff, has no isolated points, has no nonempty $G\_\delta$ set with empty interior, has no two disjoint $F\_\sigma$ sets with non-disjoint closures, and has *weight* $c=2^{\aleph\_0}$ - that is, every basis has cardinality $\ge c$, and there is some basis with cardinality $c$.



Characterization of Stone-Cech compactifications
I confirme my comment :


$X$ is the stone-cech compactification of a discrete space if and only if $X$ is compact, haussdorf, extremally disconected, and has a dense set of open points.


here is a sketches of the proof :


If X is a stone-chech compactification of a discret set Y, then it is clear that X is compact, hausdorf, the point of Y form a dense set of open points, and it is well know that X is extremally disconected.


Asume now that $X$ is a topological space satisfying all those hypothesis.


Let $Y$ be the set of open point of $X$.


It's a routine to check to see that the map which to a subset $P$ of $Y$ associate it's closure in $X$, and the map which to a clopen of $X$ associate it's intersection with $Y$, are reciprocal bijection between the parts of $Y$ and the clopen set of $X$.


considere now a point $x \in X$, then {x} is the intersection of clopen set containing $X$, and the set of clopen of $X$ containing $x$ correspond through the previous bijection to an ultrafilter on $Y$.


After that, consider an ultrafilter $\mathcal{F}$ on $Y$, you can see that $\displaystyle \bigcap\_{P \in \mathcal{F}} \overline{P} $ is a singleton (it contains a point because it is an intersection of non-empty compact, and it can't contain two point because of the properties ultrafilter).


those two application will induce an homeomorphism between $X$ and the space of ultrafilter of $Y$.


