Epimorphisms of frames (Q2640627)

In this note, the authors give a useful characterization of frame epimorphisms. Roughly, f: \(F\to G\) is epic if and only if every element of G is accessible from F via iterated complementation in an appropriate extension of F. This is very much like the known characterizations of epimorphisms in distributive lattices and k-frames [the first author, ibid. 70, 107-127 (1991; Zbl 0721.06006)], and is sufficient to answer to some questions about frame epimorphisms which have been raised by Banaschewski. Among other things their characterization shows that a Boolean frame has no epic extensions.