Maximal Tychonoff spaces and normal isolator covers

Abstract

We introduce a new kind of cover called a normal isolator cover to characterize maximal Tychonoff spaces. Such a study is used to provide an alternative proof of an interesting result of Feng and Garcia-Ferreira in 1999 that every maximal Tychonoff space is extremally disconnected. Maximal tychonoffness of subspaces is also discussed.