On the universal completion of pointfree function spaces (Q2196348)

This interesting paper addresses the universal completion of the space of continuous real functions from the point of view of pointfree topology. For a frame \(L\), the continuous real functions on \(L\) (i.e. the frame homomorphisms from the frame of reals \(\mathfrak L(\mathbb{R})\) into \(L\)) form a Riesz space \({\mathrm C}(L)\). The author's goal with this paper is to construct the universal completion of \({\mathrm C}(L)\) in two different ways: firstly, as the space of continuous real functions on the Booleanization \(\mathfrak{B}(L)\) of \(L\); secondly, as the space of nearly finite Hausdorff continuous functions on \(L\). It should be pointed out that the first construction has no counterpart in the classical setting, as the Booleanization \(\mathfrak{B}(L)\) may not be spatial even in the case of a spatial frame \(L\), and that it offers a lucid way of representing the universal completion as a space of continuous real functions. After studying the universal completeness of \({\mathrm C}(L)\) when \(L\) is Boolean, the author shows that the natural embedding of \({\mathrm C}(L)\) into \({\mathrm C}(\mathfrak{B}(L))\) constitutes its universal completion. Then he presents an alternative description of the completion in terms of a certain kind of interval valued functions, the so-called \textit{nearly finite Hausdorff continuous functions}, and makes use of these representations to characterize the completely regular frames \(L\) for which \({\mathrm C}(L)\) is universally complete, and to show that \({\mathrm C}(L)\) and \({\mathrm C}(M)\) have isomorphic universal completions if and only if \(\mathfrak{B}(L)\) and \(\mathfrak{B}(M)\) are isomorphic. The application of this result to the classical case \({\mathrm C}(X)\) of the space of continuous real functions on a topological space \(X\) characterizes those spaces \(X\) for which \({\mathrm C}(X)\) is universally complete, providing yet another representation in the spatial setting. The well-known construction of van der Walt follows easily from this approach. Furthermore, the author also gives a direct proof, avoiding representation theory, of the result of \textit{J. H. van der Walt} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 460, No. 1, 76--97 (2018; Zbl 1395.46020)] that asserts that \({\mathrm C}(X)\) and \({\mathrm C}(Y)\) have Riesz isomorphic universal completions if and only if the Booleanizations of the corresponding frames of open sets of spaces \(X\) and \(Y\) are isomorphic. The paper ends with a fresh look at the classical Maeda-Ogasawara-Vulikh representation theorem for Archimedean Riesz spaces with weak unit from a pointfree point of view. Specifically, the author shows that for an Archimedean Riesz space \(R\) with weak unit, \(R\) embeds into the space \({\mathrm C}(\mathcal{B}(R))\) of continuous real functions on the frame \(\mathcal{B}(R)\) of bands of \(R\). This embedding is precisely the universal completion of \(R\). The novel aspect of this approach is that it does not require the use of extended real functions and the construction of the Stone space of \(\mathcal{B}(R)\), leading to a simpler construction.