Spectral space

In mathematics, a spectral space is a topological space that is homeomorphic to the spectrum of a commutative ring.

Definition

Let X be a topological space and let K^$\circ$(X) be the set of all quasi-compact open subsets of X. Then X is said to be spectral if it satisfies all of the following conditions:

X is quasi-compact and T₀.
K^$\circ$(X) is a basis of open subsets of X.
K^$\circ$(X) is closed under finite intersections.
X is sober, i.e. every nonempty irreducible closed subset of X has a (necessarily unique) generic point.

Equivalent descriptions

Let X be a topological space. Each of the following properties are equivalent to the property of X being spectral:

X is homeomorphic to a projective limit of finite T₀-spaces.
X is homeomorphic to the spectrum of a bounded distributive lattice L. In this case, L is isomorphic (as a bounded lattice) to the lattice K^$\circ$(X) (this is called Stone representation of distributive lattices).
X is homeomorphic to the spectrum of a commutative ring.
X is the topological space determined by a Priestley space.
X is a coherent space in the sense of topology (this indeed is only another name).

Properties

Let X be a spectral space and let K^$\circ$(X) be as before. Then:

K^$\circ$(X) is a bounded sublattice of subsets of X.
Every closed subspace of X is spectral.
An arbitrary intersection of quasi-compact and open subsets of X (hence of elements from K^$\circ$(X)) is again spectral.
X is T₀ by definition, but in general not T₁. In fact a spectral space is T₁ if and only if it is Hausdorff (or T₂) if and only if it is a boolean space.
X can be seen as a Pairwise Stone space.^[1]

Spectral maps

A spectral map f: X → Y between spectral spaces X and Y is a continuous map such that the preimage of every open and quasi-compact subset of Y under f is again quasi-compact.

The category of spectral spaces which has spectral maps as morphisms is dually equivalent to the category of bounded distributive lattices (together with morphisms of such lattices).^[2] In this anti-equivalence, a spectral space X corresponds to the lattice K^$\circ$(X).

References

M. Hochster (1969). Prime ideal structure in commutative rings. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 142 43—60

Johnstone, Peter (1982), "II.3 Coherent locales", Stone Spaces, Cambridge University Press, pp. 62–69, ISBN 978-0-521-33779-3 .

Footnotes

↑ G. Bezhanishvili, N. Bezhanishvili, D. Gabelaia, A. Kurz, (2010). Bitopological duality for distributive lattices and Heyting algebras. Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, 20.
↑ (Johnstone 1982)