\(\gamma\)-spaces were introduced by Gerlits and Nagy in 1982 as Tychonoff spaces X such that \(C_p(X)\), the space of all continuous real-valued functions \(f:X\rightarrow\mathbb R\), with the topology of pointwise convergence, has the Frechet-Urysohn property.
The talk will concentrate on subspaces of the real line which are \(\gamma\)-spaces, these are usually called \(\gamma\)-sets. They can be characterized by a combinatorial covering property of their open covers, which makes them one of the special sets of reals in terminology of A. Miller. In particular, every \(\gamma\)-set has a strong measure zero. We shall discuss some recent results about \(\gamma\)-spaces and similar ones, for instance the preservation thereof by forcing, and their relation to other combinatorial covering properties of open covers.