Extensions of dualities and a new approach to the Fedorchuk duality (Q2217245)

The various forms of Stone duality have produced a number of algebraic representations of topological spaces over the past decades. For compact Hausdorff spaces and continuous maps, de Vries obtained a dual equivalence to complete normal contact algebras and some special maps between them. In [Sib. Math. J. 14, 759--767 (1974; Zbl 0285.54031)], \textit{V. V. Fedorchuk} restricted this duality to quasi-open maps and suprema-preserving Boolean homomorphisms which reflect the contact relations. Utilizing a result of \textit{G. Bezhanishvili} [Topology Appl. 157, No. 6, 1064--1080 (2010; Zbl 1190.54015)], which states that for a complete Boolean algebra, the normal contact relations correspond to Hausdorff irreducible images of its Stone dual, the authors of the present paper extract the categorical properties of the class of irreducible maps in order to extend a given dual equivalence \(T:\mathcal{A}\longleftrightarrow\mathcal{X}:S\) (think of a restricted Stone duality), when \(\mathcal{X}\) is a full subcategory of a given category \(\mathcal{Y}\) of spaces, to a dual equivalence \(\tilde{T}:\mathcal{B}\longleftrightarrow\mathcal{Y}:\tilde{S}\) with a natural category \(\mathcal{B}\) into which \(\mathcal{A}\) fully embeds. Requiring a certain type of covering class, admitted by any coreflective \(\mathcal{X}\) in \(\mathcal{Y}\), their main Extension Theorem allows to reprove the Fedorchuk duality without using the de Vries duality. Variations of their general approach are being applied to other known dualities in related articles.