Remarks on the Stone-Čech and Alexandroff compactifications of locales (Q2475110)

\textit{B. Banaschewski} has shown in ``Compactification of frames'' [Math. Nachr. 149, 105--115 (1990; Zbl 0722.54018)] that, given a completely regular frame \(L\), every compactification of \(L\) can be constructed as a frame of ``round'' ideals with respect to some strong inclusion on \(L\). In the paper under review the author starts from the premise that not the entire structure of a frame is required to construct any one compactification. Indeed, the structure required is that a frame is a pseudocomplemented distributive lattice (abbreviated pcd-lattice). By a strong inclusion on a pcd-lattice \(P\), the author means a binary relation \(\triangleleft\) which is pretty much like the strong inclusion in the sense of the Banaschewski paper cited above, save for the compatibility property that every element be covered by elements strongly below it. An ideal of \(P\) is called round if every element in it is strongly below another also in the ideal. The lattice \({\mathcal R}(P)\) of round ideals is shown to be a compact regular frame. Since the author is careful to distinguish between ``compact regular'' and ``compact completely regular'' (a distinction that disappears if one assumes an appropriate weakening of the Axiom of Choice, namely, Countable Dependent Choice), he proves that \({\mathcal R}(P)\) is (over and above being compact) completely regular if the strong inclusion is ``scale-interpolative'' in the sense that whenever \(x\triangleleft y\), there is a \(\triangleleft\)-scale from \(x\) to \(y\). Defining a weak compactification of a frame \(L\) to be a (not necessarily onto) frame homomorphism \(f: M\to L\) with \(M\) compact regular, he shows that if \(L\) is a frame, \(P\) a sub-pcd-lattice and \(\triangleleft\) a strong inclusion, then the join map \({\mathcal R}(P)\to L\) is a weak compactification which is universal in a sense akin to the universality of the Stone-Čech compactification of any completely regular frame. Not only that: he further demonstrates that if \(\triangleleft\) is compatible, then, in fact, \({\mathcal R}(P)\to L\) is a compactification. Next, given a family \({\mathcal F}\) of frame homomorphisms \(f_i: L_i\to L\) (with \(L\) preassigned), a strong inclusion \(\triangleleft_F\) is defined in some way. After a series of results, the author arrives at the deduction that every compactification of \(L\) can be obtained by taking round ideals over an inductively defined sub-pcd-lattice of \(L\) endowed with an inductively defined strong inclusion. In the last three sections, the author establishes constructive (in the technical sense) localic versions of (a) the implication of Stone's theorem by Čech's, (b) the existence of the Stone-Čech compactification of locales, and (c) the Alexandroff compactification of locales.