Locale (mathematics)

In mathematics, especially in order theory, a complete Heyting algebra is a Heyting algebra that is complete as a lattice. Complete Heyting algebras are the objects of three different categories; the category CHey, the category Loc of locales, and its opposite, the category Frm of frames. Although these three categories contain the same objects, they differ in their morphisms, and thus get distinct names. Only the morphisms of CHey are homomorphisms of complete Heyting algebras.

Locales and frames form the foundation of pointless topology, which, instead of building on point-set topology, recasts the ideas of general topology in categorical terms, as statements on frames and locales.

Consider a partially ordered set (P, ≤) that is a complete lattice. Then P is a complete Heyting algebra if any of the following equivalent conditions hold:

The system of all open sets of a given topological space ordered by inclusion is a complete Heyting algebra.

The objects of the category CHey, the category Frm of frames and the category Loc of locales are the complete lattices satisfying the infinite distributive law. These categories differ in what constitutes a morphism.

The morphisms of Frm are (necessarily monotone) functions that preserve finite meets and arbitrary joins. Such functions are not homomorphisms of complete Heyting algebras. The definition of Heyting algebras crucially involves the existence of right adjoints to the binary meet operation, which together define an additional implication operation ⇒. Thus, a homomorphism of complete Heyting algebras is a morphism of frames that in addition preserves implication. The morphisms of Loc are opposite to those of Frm, and they are usually called maps (of locales).

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