Characterizing subgroups of compact abelian groups

We prove that every countable subgroup of a compact metrizable abelian group has a characterizing set. As an application, we answer several questions on maximally almost periodic (MAP) groups and give a characterization of the class of (necessarily MAP) abelian topological groups whose Bohr topology has countable pseudocharacter. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.