Suprema in spectral spaces and the constructible closure (Q2006017)

The prime spectrum of a commutative ring carries a natural partial order induced by the set-theoretic inclusion, order that can also be recovered topologically, as it coincides with the ``specialization order'' \(\leq\) of the Zariski topology. In the present paper, the authors investigate the interplay between this order and the patch or constructible topology, a finer topology considered by \textit{M. Hochster} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 142, 43--60 (1969; Zbl 0184.29401)], which remains spectral but, furthermore, becomes Hausdorff. The main purpose of their investigation is to analyze several different spaces of algebraic interest (arising as sets of modules or of rings), in particular determining several examples of subspaces that are dense or closed in the constructible topology. Many of the results are based on one of the main theorems of the paper: if \(X\) is a spectral space and \(Y\subseteq X\) is closed by finite suprema (i.e., sup(\(F\)) exists for every nonempty finite subset \(F\subseteq Y\)), then all subsets of \(Y\) have a supremum, which belongs to the constructible closure of \(Y\). An analogous result holds for infima, as can be seen through the use of the so-called inverse topology. Among other properties, the authors connect the concept of algebraic lattice of sets inside a given set \(S,\) which can be used to model several spaces of substructures, with the notion of finite-type closure operation, and they show that the set of these closures can be made into a spectral space. In the last part of the paper, they apply their results to spaces of submodules, of overrings and of semistar operations, spaces that provide several new natural examples of spectral spaces when endowed with the Zariski or the hull-kernel topology.