Reflectors and coreflectors in the category of fuzzy topological spaces (Q1118848)

In another paper the authors [Math. Nachr. 141, 55-65 (1989)] have shown by pure categorical arguments that TOP (topological spaces) and FNS (fuzzy neighborhood spaces) are bireflective and bicoreflective subcategories of FTS (fuzzy topological spaces, in the Lowen-sense), while MAX (maximal, with respect to the level topologies, fuzzy topological spaces) is only coreflective in FTS. In this paper explicit formulas are given for the bireflections and bicoreflections in question, all by means of the elementary functors \(\omega_{\alpha}\), \(\omega^*_{\alpha}\), \(\iota_{\alpha}\), \(\iota^*_{\alpha}\) defined by \[ \omega_{\alpha}({\mathcal T})=\{\lambda \in I^ X;\quad \lambda^{-1}(]\alpha,1])\in {\mathcal T}\},\quad \iota_{\alpha}(\Delta)=\{\lambda^{-1}(]\alpha,1]);\quad \lambda \in \Delta \}\quad for\quad \alpha \in [0,1[ \] and \[ \omega^*_{\alpha}({\mathcal T})=[\{\alpha 1_ G;\quad G\in {\mathcal T}\}],\quad \iota^*_{\alpha}(\Delta)=\{G;\quad \alpha l_ G\in \Delta \}\quad for\quad \alpha \in [0,1], \] if \({\mathcal T}\) and \(\Delta\) are resp. a topology and a fuzzy topology on X. A typical formula is e.g. \[ r_ N(\Delta)=\inf_{\alpha \in [0,1[}\omega_{\alpha}\circ \iota^*_{\alpha}(\Delta)=\sup_{\alpha \in]0,1]}\omega^*_{\alpha}\circ \iota^*_{\alpha}(\Delta) \] for the FNS-bireflection. A subcategory, dual in a certain sense to MAX, and consisting of fuzzy topological spaces, minimal with respect to a given family \((\iota^*_{\alpha}(\Delta))_{\alpha \in [0,1]}\) arises naturally, but proves to be nothing else than FNS. This in turn led to a certain number of characterizations of FNS, most of them being new.