Compactly generated Hausdorff locales (Q2575768)

Over twenty years ago, in a paper on exponentials (function spaces) in the category of locales, the reviewer raised the problem of developing a theory of compact generation for locales. Here, at last, is the first serious attack on this problem. The author restricts himself to Hausdorff locales (that is, locales with closed diagonal): for such a locale \(X\), he defines \(kX\) to be the colimit of the diagram formed by the compact sublocales of \(X\) and their inclusions, and calls \(X\) compactly generated if the canonical map \(kX\to X\) is an isomorphism. By an ingenious use of the Hofmann-Mislove theorem (here called the Hofmann-Mislove-Johnstone theorem), he shows that the frame of opens of \(kX\) may be constructed as the second Lawson dual of that of \(X\). Unfortunately, he has not (yet) been able to determine whether the canonical map \(kX\to X\) is always monic (as it is for spaces), or even whether \(kX\) is always Hausdorff when \(X\) is; but, under either of these hypotheses, he is able to show that the functor \(k\) provides a coreflection from arbitrary Hausdorff locales to compactly generated ones.