Contents

Idea and motivation

Locale theory is one particular formulation of point-free topology.

A locale is, intuitively, like a topological space that may or may not have enough points (or even any points at all). It contains things we call open subspaces but there may or may not be enough points to distinguish between open subspaces. An open subspace in a locale can be regarded as conveying a bounded amount of information about the (hypothetical) points that it contains.

For example, there is a locale of all surjections from natural numbers (thought of as forming the discrete space $N$) to real numbers (forming the real line $R$, the locale of real numbers). This locale has no points, since there are no such surjections, but it contains many nontrivial open subspaces. (These open subspaces are generated by a family parametrised by $n\colon N$ and $x\colon R$; the basic open associated to $n$ and $x$ may be described as $\{f\colon N \twoheadrightarrow R \;|\; f(n) = x\}$. Together with relations internalizing the statements ‘$\forall\, n,\; \exists!\, x,\; f(n) = x$’ and ‘$\forall\, x,\; \exists\, n,\; f(n) = x$’, which identify some opens but do not identify all of them, this specifies the locale. This construction is example 1.2.8 from section C1.2 of the Elephant.)

Every topological space can be regarded as a locale (with some lost information if the space is not sober). The locales arising this way are the topological or spatial locales. Conversely, every locale induces a topology on its set of points, but sometimes a great deal of information is lost; in particular, there are many different locales whose set of points is empty.

One motivation for locales is that since they take the notion of open subspace as basic, with the points (if any) being a derived notion, they are exactly what is needed to define sheaves. The notion of sheaf on a topological space only refers to the open subspaces, rather than the points, so it carries over word-for-word to a definition of sheaves on locales. Moreover, passage from locales to their toposes of sheaves is a full and faithful functor, unlike for topological spaces.

Another advantage of locales is that they are better-behaved than topological spaces in alternative foundations of mathematics, including mathematics without the axiom of choice, more generally constructive mathematics, or mathematics internal to an arbitrary topos. For example, constructively the topological space $[0,1]$ need not be compact, but the locale $[0,1]$ is always compact (in a suitable sense). It follows that the locale $[0,1]$, and hence also the locale $R$ of real numbers, is not necessarily spatial. When it fails to be spatial, because there are “not enough real numbers,” the locale of real numbers is generally a better-behaved object than the topological space of real numbers.

Definitions

Recall that a frame $A$ is a poset with all joins and all finite meets which satisfies the infinite distributive law:

A frame homomorphism $\phi\colon A\to B$ is a function which preserves finite meets and arbitrary joins. Frames and frame homomorphisms form a category Frm.

Note: By the adjoint functor theorem (AFT) for posets, a frame also has all meets (at least assuming that it is a small set, or more generally that we allow impredicative quantification over it), but a frame homomorphism need not preserve them. Similarly, by the AFT, a frame is automatically a Heyting algebra, but again a frame homomorphism need not preserve the Heyting implication.

By definition, the category Locale of locales is the opposite of the category of frames

That is, a locale $X$ “is” a frame, which we often write as $O(X)$ and call “the frame of open subspaces of $X$”, and a continuous map $f\colon X \to Y$ of locales is a frame homomorphism $f^*\colon O(Y) \to O(X)$. If you think of a frame as an algebraic structure (a lattice satisfying a completeness condition), then this is an example of the duality of space and quantity.

It is also possible to think of a continuous map $f\colon X \to Y$ as a map of posets $f_*\colon O(X) \to O(Y)$: a function that preserves all meets (and therefore is monotone and has a left adjoint $f^*\colon O(Y) \to O(X)$) and such that the left adjoint $f^*$ preserves all finite meets. This has the arrow pointing in the “right” direction, at the cost of a less direct definition. (In predicative mathematics, we would have to explicitly add into this definition that $f_*$ has a left adjoint; although since few locales even exist predicatively, we usually turn attention to bases of locales anyway.)

The category $Locale$ is naturally enhanced to a 2-category:

(See for instance Johnstone, C1.4, p. 514.)

Since parallel $2$-morphisms are equal, this 2-category is in fact a (1,2)-category: a Poset-enriched category.

Subsidiary notions

Open and closed subspaces

Given a locale $X$, the elements of the frame $O(X)$ are traditionally thought of as being the open subspaces of $X$ and are therefore called the opens (or open subspaces, open parts, or open sublocales) of $X$. However, one may equally well view them as the closed subspaces of $X$ and call them the closeds (or closed subspaces, closed parts, or closed sublocales) of $X$. When viewed as closed subspaces, the opposite containment relation is used; thus $O(X)$ is the frame of opens of $X$, while the opposite poset $O(X)^{op}$ is the coframe of closeds of $X$.

An open subspace may be thought of as a potentially verifiable property of a hypothetical point of the space $X$. Thus we may verify the intersection of two open subspaces by verifying both properties, and we may verify the union of any family of open subspaces by verifying at least one of them; but it may not necessarily make sense to verify the intersection of infinitely many open subspaces, because this would require us to do an infinite amount of work. (The meet of an arbitrary family of open subspaces does exist, but the construction is impredicative, and it does not match the meet within the lattice of all subspaces.)

Dually, a closed subspace may be thought of as a potentially refutable property. Thus we may refute the union of two closed subspaces by refuting both of them, and we may refute the intersection of any family of closed subspaces by refuting at least one of them; but it may not necessarily make sense to refute the union of infinitely many closed subspaces. (Again, the join of an arbitrary family of closed subspaces does not work right.)

If one views an element of $O(X)$ as a subspace of $X$, one usually means to view it as an open subspace, but we have seen that one may also view it as a closed subspace. This is given by two different maps (one covariant and a frame homomorphism, one contravariant and a coframe homomorphism) from $O(X)$ to the lattice of all subspaces of $X$. See sublocale for further discussion.

Points

As a locale, the abstract point is the locale $1$ whose frame of opens is the frame of truth values (classically $\{\bot \lt \top\}$). This is the terminal object in $Locale$, since we must have (for $f\colon X \to 1$) $f^*(\top) = \top_X$ and $f^*(\bot) = \bot_X$ (and most generally $f^*(p) = \bigvee \{\top_X \;|\; p\}$, since $p = \bigvee \{\top \;|\; p\}$).

Given a locale $X$, a concrete point of $X$ may be defined in any of the following equivalent ways:

1. A point of $X$ is a continuous map $f\colon 1 \to X$;
2. Unravelling this in terms of $f^*\colon O(X) \to O(1)$ and viewing this as a characteristic function, a point of $X$ is a completely prime filter in $O(X)$;
3. Unravelling (1) in terms of $f_*\colon O(1) \to O(X)$, which classically (using excluded middle) is determined by $f_*(\bot)$, a point of $X$ is a prime element of $O(X)$.

Definition (3) is simpler than (2), being an element of $O(X)$ satisfying a finitary condition rather than a subset of $O(X)$ satisfying an infinitary condition. However, it doesn't work in constructive mathematics, which provides much (but by no means all) of the motivation for studying locales.

Properties

Categories of internal locales

See localic geometric morphism for more.

This appears as Johnstone, theorem C1.6.3.

This appears as Johnstone, scholium C1.6.4.

Relation to topological spaces

Every topological space $X$ has a frame of opens $O(X)$, and therefore gives rise to a locale $X_L$. For every continuous function $f\colon X \to Y$ between topological spaces, the inverse image map $f^{-1}\colon O(Y) \to O(X)$ is a frame homomorphism, so $f$ induces a continuous map $f_L\colon X_L \to Y_L$ of locales. Thus we have a functor

$(-)_L\colon$ Top $\to$ Locale.

Conversely, if $X$ is any locale, we define a point of $X$ to be a continuous map $1 \to X$. Here $1$ is the terminal locale, which can be defined as the locale $1_L$ corresponding to the terminal space. Explicitly, we have $O(1) = P(1)$, the powerset of $1$ (the initial frame, the set of truth values, which is $2$ classically or in a Boolean topos). Since a frame homomorphism $O(X) \to P(1)$ is determined by the preimage of $1$ (the true truth value), a point can also be described more explicitly as a completely prime filter: an upwards-closed subset $F$ of $O(X)$ such that $X \in F$ ($X$ denotes the top element of $O(X)$), if $U,V \in F$ then $U \cap V \in F$, and if $\bigcup_i U_i \in F$ then $U_i \in F$ for some $i$.

The elements of $O(X)$ induce a topology on the set of points of $X$ in an obvious way, thereby giving rise to a topological space $X_P$. Any continuous map $f\colon X \to Y$ of locales induces a continuous map $f_P\colon X_P \to Y_P$ of spaces, so we have another functor

$(-)_P\colon Locale \to Top$.

One finds that $(-)_L$ is left adjoint to $(-)_P$.

In fact, this is an idempotent adjunction:

This appears for instance as (MacLaneMoerdijk, theorem IX.3 1) or as (Johnstone, lemma C.1.2.2).

Therefore the adjunction restricts to an equivalence between the fixed subcategories on either side.

see also MO here

This appears for instance as (MacLaneMoerdijk, corollary IX.3 4).

Consequently, we often identify a sober topological space and the corresponding topological locale.

Relation to toposes – localic reflection

The notion of Grothendieck topos can be seen as a categorification of the notion of locale, by relating both notions to the notion of lex totality:

The analogous result for toposes involves a bit of set theory: under ZFC plus the existence of a strong inaccessible cardinal? $\kappa$, the foundational assumption of MacLane in Categories for the Working Mathematician, call a category moderate if its set of morphisms has size $\kappa$. For example, $Set$ is moderate.

These results emphasize frames/toposes as algebras, where the morphisms are left exact left adjoints. The right adjoints to such morphisms are called geometric morphisms, and emphasize locales/toposes as spaces. This analogy, which plays an important but mostly tacit role in Joyal and Tierney, can be developed further along the following lines.

The frame of opens $O(X)$ corresponding to a locale $X$ is naturally a site:

See for instance (MacLaneMoerdijk, section 5).

Write Topos for the category of Grothendieck toposes and geometric morphisms.

This appears for instance as MacLaneMoerdijk, section IX.5 prop 2.

This appears for instance as MacLaneMoerdijk, section IX.5 prop 3.

The functor $L$ here is also called localic reflection.

In summary this means that locales form a reflective subcategory of Topos:

In fact this is even a genuine full sub-2-category:

This appears as (Johnstone, prop. C1.4.5).

We may think of a frame as a Grothendieck (0,1)-topos. Then localic reflection is reflection of Grothendieck toposes onto $(0,1)$-toposes and is given by $(-1)$-truncation: for $X$ a locale, $Sh(X)$ the corresponding localic topos and $\mathcal{E}$ any Grothendieck topos we have a natural equivalence

which is

This is a small part of a pattern in higher topos theory, described at n-localic (∞,1)-topos.

Examples

General topology

As explained above, the functor from topological spaces to locales provides a very large collection of examples. When restricted to sober topological spaces, this functor becomes fully faithful and its essential images consists of spatial locales.

Without the axiom of excluded middle, many classical examples, such as the locale of real numbers or Cantor space, can cease to be spatial.

Naturally, one is interested in examples of locales that are not spatial, and a few are given below.

Measure theory

An amazing feature of pointfree topology is that it contains not only point-set general topology, but also point-set measure theory, again as a full subcategory.

Specifically, recall from the duality between geometry and algebra that various categories of commutative algebras are contravariantly equivalent to certain corresponding categories of spaces. The category of algebras relevant for measure theory is the category of commutative von Neumann algebras and ultraweakly continuous *-homomorphisms; it is widely accepted that dropping the commutativity condition and passing to the opposite category yields the correct category of noncommutative measurable spaces.

The category of commutative von Neumann algebras is contravariantly equivalent to several other categories:

• compact strictly localizable enhanced measurable spaces and measurable maps;

• hyperstonean topological spaces and open maps;

• hyperstonean locales and open maps;

• measurable locales and maps of locales.

The last category is particularly interesting: it is a full subcategory of locales. Thus, measure theory embeds into pointfree topology, which means that methods and results from pointfree topology can be used right away in measure theory. This stands in contrast to the traditional point-set treatments, where two rather different formalisms must be developed for point-set topological spaces and point-set measurable spaces.

With the exception of discrete locales, measurable locales are never spatial, and in fact do not have any points other than those in its atomic (discrete) part, which splits off as a coproduct summand.

Intersections of dense sublocales

Another important source of nonspatial sublocales is given by intersections (of arbitrary cardinality) of dense sublocales.

Again, in contrast to the point-set setting, where the Baire category theorem identifies the rather restrictive conditions under which the intersection of dense topological subspaces is again dense, in the pointfree setting arbitrary intersections of dense sublocales are always dense.

In particular, one can intersection all dense sublocales of a given locale, which always produces a nonspatial locale, unless the original locale is discrete. This is the double negation sublocale.

But there are other interesting examples. Connecting to measure theory, we can consider a valuation $\nu$ on a given locale $L$ and take the intersection of all sublocales $S$ such that $\nu(S)=\nu(1)$. The resulting sublocale can be seen as the smallest sublocale with a measure 0 complement.

Related concepts

• The notion of locale may be identified with that of a Grothendieck (0,1)-topos. See Heyting algebra for more on this.

• An ionad is to a topological space as a Grothendieck topos is to a locale.

• A group object internal to locales or an internal groupoid in locales is a localic group or localic groupoid, respectively.

• positive locale, locally positive locale

• premetric locale, metric locale

• preuniform locale, uniform locale

There is also a notion of internal locale, see also internal site.

• topological space, topological locale

• ionad

• topos

• profinite space, profinite reflection

• localic homotopy theory

• geometric hyperdoctrine

References

An early paper, containing much of the basic theory, and in which the term “locale” is introduced:

• John R. Isbell, Atomless Parts of Spaces, Mathematica Scandinavica 31 (1972) 5–32 [doi:10.7146/math.scand.a-11409]

An introduction to and survey of the use of locales instead of topological spaces (“point-free topology”):

• Peter Johnstone, The point of pointless topology , Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 8 1 (1983), 41-53 [Bulletin AMS, Euclid]

This is, in its own words, to be read as the trailer for the book

• Peter Johnstone, Stone Spaces, Cambridge Studies in Advanced Mathematics 3, Cambridge University Press (1982, 1986) xxi+370 pp. [MR85f:54002]

that develops, among other things, much of general topology entirely with the notion of locales used in place of that of topological spaces. See also Stone Spaces for more.

Other textbook accounts:

• Francis Borceux, volume 3, chapter 1 of Handbook of Categorical Algebra,

• Peter Johnstone, part C (volume 2) Sketches of an elephant: a topos theory compendium.

• Saunders MacLane, Ieke Moerdijk, Sheaves in Geometry and Logic

• Jorge Picado & Aleš Pultr (2012). Frames and Locales: Topology without points. Springer. Web page (with preface, contents, and errata).

and

• Steve Vickers, Topology via logic, Cambridge University Press (1989)

where the latter develops topology from the point of view of its internal logic.

An introductory survey is

• Jorge Picado, Aleš Pultr, Anna Tozzi, Locales, pages 49–101 in Pedicchio&Tholen (eds.), Categorical Foundations , CUP 2004. (draft)

See also

• eom, Locale

Lex totality is the subject of an article of Street,

• Ross Street, Notions of Topos, Bull. Australian Math. Soc. 23 (1981), 199–208.

The connection between locales and toposes via lex totality plays a tacit role throughout the influential monograph

• André Joyal and Myles Tierney, An Extension of the Galois Theory of Grothendieck, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society 51 (1984).

A basic introduction to locale theory can be found in section 1 of

• Ingo Blechschmidt, Generalized spaces for constructive algebra, (arXiv:2012.13850)

A model category of locales which makes the reflection of sober topological spaces a Quillen adjunction to the sober-restriction of the classical model structure on topological spaces:

• Sterling Ebel, Chris Kapulkin, Thm. 4.45 in: Synthetic approach to the Quillen model structure on topological spaces [arXiv:2310.14235]