The open local operator and closed local operator associated with have meet the identity and join the largest local operator. The meet identity is . Every mono factors through its union with as a closed-operator-dense mono followed by an open-operator-dense mono, proving that their join makes every mono dense.
Open local operator 2026-10-06
For a subterminal object classified by , the open local operator is . Its dense monos are exactly those whose image contains the pullback of that subterminal. It is complementary to the corresponding closed local operator.
A local operator, also called a Lawvere-Tierney topology, is a map which internally satisfies
The closure operation of a local operator sends a mono with characteristic map to the subobject classified by . It is inflationary, idempotent and pullback-stable. A mono is j-dense if its closure is its whole codomain, and j-closed if it equals its closure. A j-sheaf is an object for which restriction
is a bijection for every j-dense mono ; requiring only injectivity defines a j-separated object.
Here is a construction underlying the sheaf reflector for a local operator. The closed-subobject classifier is a j-sheaf: closed subobjects on a dense subobject extend uniquely by taking their closure in the larger object. Powers are also sheaves, because products of a dense mono with remain dense. A j-closed subobject of a sheaf is a sheaf: first extend a map into the ambient sheaf, then use density to force its image into the closed subobject.
Close the diagonal of . Its j-closure is an equivalence relation, using preservation of finite meets and pullback-stability to verify transitivity. The effective quotient is the separated reflection: every map from into a separated object identifies that closed diagonal and factors uniquely. For separated , the closed-singleton map
is monic. Its j-closed image closure is a sheaf, and is dense. Unique extension across that mono, following the separated quotient factorization, proves
for every sheaf . This proves reflectivity. The closure construction is pullback-stable; equivalently, separated quotients and the subsequent dense embeddings commute with the finite limiting comparisons, giving the usual left-exact sheaf reflector.
Finite limits of sheaves are computed in , because unique extensions can be taken componentwise. If is a sheaf, is a sheaf for any , by the same product-with-dense-mono argument. Thus sheaf exponentials are the ambient exponentials. Monos between sheaves have j-closed images: their closure is a sheaf, and the dense inclusion into it splits by the extension property, hence is an isomorphism. Therefore classifies precisely their subobjects. These observations establish is a reflective topos.
Now let classify the given subterminal object. Its open local operator and closed local operator are
The Heyting algebra identities verify all local-operator axioms: implication by fixed preserves meets and is idempotent, while adjoining preserves meets by distributivity and is idempotent.
For a mono in with characteristic predicate , closedness for means , or . Density for means , again . Thus the c(U)-closed monos are exactly the o(U)-dense monos.
Both densities together force and , hence : the only jointly dense monos are isomorphisms. More explicitly, the meet of these operators is pointwise and
so .
For their join, every mono factors through the union with the pullback :
The first mono is c(U)-dense, because adjoining fills its codomain; the second is o(U)-dense, because its image contains . Any local operator above both must therefore make every mono dense, since its dense monos are closed under composition. It is the largest operator . Consequently
These are the complementary open and closed local operators in the ordered lattice of local operators, with order given by pointwise implication.