On the spectra of commutative semigroups (Q2200898)

A \emph{spectral space} is a topological space that is homeomorphic to the prime spectrum of a commutative unitary ring, endowed with the Zariski topology. A celebrated theorem of Hochster [\textit{M. Hochster}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 142, 43--60 (1969; Zbl 0184.29401)] shows that spectral spaces can be characterized in a purely toplogical way; this characterization has allowed to show that many natural Zariski-like topologies on algebraic structures (for example, some spaces of rings or of modules) are spectral spaces, even if it is usually very difficult or even impossible to find explicitly a ring whose spectrum is homeomorphic to the given topological space. In this paper, the authors examine this concept in the context of semigroups. Given a commutative semigroup \(S\), the \emph{spectrum} \(\mathrm{Spec}(S)\) of \(S\) is defined, like for rings, as the set of all prime ideals of \(S\); the authors define on \(\mathrm{Spec}(S)\) the Zariski topology in a way analogous to the ring case, by taking as the family of closed sets the sets in the form \(h(I):=\{P\in\mathrm{Spec}(S)\mid I\subseteq P\}\), as \(I\) ranges among the subsets of \(S\). In this way, \(\mathrm{Spec}(S)\) becomes a spectral space with an additional property: namely, it has a basis of \emph{super-compact} open sets (a topological space \(X\) is super-compact if, when \(\{U_i\mid i\in I\}\) is an open cover of \(X\), then \(U_i=X\) for some \(i\)). Using super-compactness, the authors characterize which topological spaces \(X\) are homeomorphic to \(\mathrm{Spec}(S)\), for some commutative semigroup \(S\): more precisely, they show that \(X\) is homeomorphic to \(\mathrm{Spec}(S)\) if and only if: \begin{itemize} \item \(X\) is \(T_0\); \item the family of super-compact open subsets of \(X\) is closed under finite intersections and forms a base of \(X\); \item if \(A\subseteq X\) is closed and \(\mathcal{F}\) is a family of super-compact open subsets that is closed under finite intersections and such that \(A\cap U\neq\emptyset\) for all \(U\in\mathcal{F}\), then \(A\cap\bigcap_{U\in\mathcal{F}}U\neq\emptyset\). \end{itemize} The result is obtained quite explicitly by associating to such a space \(X\) the semigroup of all the super-compact open subsets of \(X\), with the operation being the intersection. In this case, they call \(X\) an \emph{SS-space}. The previous result is also extended to the case where, instead of semigroups, one considers only commutative monoids. In the final part of the paper, the authors study also the categorical properties of SS-spaces. They consider the two categories \(\mathbf{SG}\) (whose objects are commutative semigroups and whose arrows are the maps such that the inverse of a prime ideal is a prime ideal) and \(\mathbf{SST}\) (whose objects are SS-spaces and whose arrows are maps such that the inverse of a super-compact open is super-compact open), and show that there is an adjunction between \(\mathbf{SG}\) and \(\mathbf{SST}^{op}\), given in one way to the association \(S\mapsto\mathrm{Spec}(S)\) and in the other way by associating to each SS-space \(X\) the semigroup of its super-compact open subsets.