A representation theorem for quantales (Q1208239)

A quantale is a complete lattice \(\mathcal Q\) equipped with an associative binary operation \(\circ\), which is sup-preserving in both variables. Quantales are a generalization of frames (where \(\circ=\land\)) and include a variety of examples such as ideal lattices of rings and power sets of monoids. Quantales have recently generated much interest in that a class of them provides partially ordered models for linear logic. For an overview, see the reviewer's book \textit{Quantales and their applications} (1990; Zbl 0703.06007). One of the main examples of a quantale is \(\text{Rel}(A)\), the relations on a set \(A\) under relational composition. The authors define a relational quantale to be a quantale \(\mathcal Q\) such that \({\mathcal Q}\subseteq\text{Rel}(A)\) for some set \(A\) and the binary operation of \(\mathcal Q\) is that of relational composition (note that sups in \(\mathcal Q\) need not be computed as unions of relations). The authors prove that every quantale \(\mathcal Q\) has a representation as a relational quantale (taking \(A={\mathcal Q}\)) and they proceed to study various aspects of this representation, such as under what conditions does the representation actually identify \(\mathcal Q\) as a subquantale of \(\text{Rel}({\mathcal Q})\). The paper concludes with a final section briefly describing some aspects of the connection to linear logic.