On densely normal locales (Q1985647)

A topological space \(X\) is densely normal if it has a dense subspace \(Y\) on which it is normal (that is, such that any two disjoint closed subsets of \(X\) that are closures in \(X\) of some closed subsets of \(Y\) can be separated by disjoint open subsets of \(X\)). The aim of this paper is to extend this concept conservatively to the category of locales. The fact, due to \textit{J. R. Isbell}'s density theorem [Math. Scand. 31, 5--32 (1972; Zbl 0246.54028)], that any object in the category of locales has a smallest dense subobject, forces to shrink the class of dense sublocales on which the locale \(L\) is required to be normal, in order to get a conservative extension. The authors solve this by intersecting the class of dense sublocales of \(L\) with the locale \(\mathcal{S}_{\mathfrak c}(L)\) of all sublocales of \(L\) that are joins of closed ones. Specifically, a locale \(L\) is said to be densely normal if it is normal on some dense sublocale of \(L\) which belongs to \(\mathcal{S}_{\mathfrak c}(L)\); it is strongly densely normal if it is normal on some complemented dense sublocale of \(L\). After studying normality of a locale on a sublocale, the authors show that a sober \(T_1\)-space \(X\) is densely normal if and only if the locale \(\Omega(X)\) of its open subsets is densely normal, and that there are certain classes of locales where dense normality and strong dense normality coincide. The question of knowing whether the two versions are actually identical is left open. They then continue by investigating some hereditary properties. In particular, they show that in the class of locales that are simultaneously coframes, dense normality is closed hereditary.