Geometric formula 2026-10-07
A geometric formula is built from atoms by finite conjunction, arbitrary small disjunction and existential quantification. Empty conjunction and disjunction give truth and falsity. In a Grothendieck topos, these constructions use finite limits, unions and images. Formula contexts have finitely many variables.
Objects are geometric formulas in context modulo provable equivalence. Morphisms are provably total, single-valued geometric relations; composition is existential conjunction. Conjunction and equality give finite limits. Interpreting formulas in a model gives a finite-limit-preserving functor, with the additional continuity condition supplied by the geometric syntactic topology.
Geometric theory 2026-10-07
A set of sequents between geometric formulas over a many-sorted signature. Its geometric syntactic category and geometric syntactic topology yield its classifying topos. A model satisfies a sequent when the interpreted antecedent subobject is contained in the consequent in the indicated context.
The inverse image is a finite-limit-preserving left adjoint with right adjoint . It preserves arbitrary colimits, and hence images as well as finite limits. These properties preserve the interpretation of geometric formulas. It need not preserve Heyting implication or every universal quantifier.
A geometric formula is built from atomic formulas, including equality, using finite conjunctions, arbitrary set-indexed disjunctions and existential quantification in a finite variable context. Truth is the empty conjunction and falsity the empty disjunction. A geometric theory is a set of sequents between such formulas over a many-sorted signature. The context supplies the universal force of an axiom; unrestricted universal quantification, implication and negation are not formula constructors in this fragment.
These choices are exactly suited to inverse image functors of geometric morphisms. Finite-limit preservation handles equality and conjunction; colimit and image preservation handle disjunction and existential quantification. Therefore an inverse image carries an internal model of a geometric theory to another model.
Construct the geometric syntactic category as follows. Objects are formulas in context , modulo provable renaming and equivalence. A morphism to is an equivalence class of formulas that are provably total and single-valued:
The last notation abbreviates componentwise equality. Identity is equality of the context variables; composition is existential conjunction over the intermediate tuple. The category has finite limits, formed through conjunction and equality.
Give it the geometric syntactic topology . A family of arrows represented by into covers when
Pullback stability is substitution, and transitivity comes from distributing existential conjunction through the covering disjunctions. Thus the generated sieves define a Grothendieck topology. Empty covers impose the interpretation of falsity as the initial object.
The classifying topos is
Its universal model assigns a sort the sheafified representable of , functions their definable graph morphisms and relations their definable subobjects. The syntactic covering conditions make the axioms valid in this model.
For the universal property, interpreting formulas in a model in a Grothendieck topos gives a finite-limit-preserving, -continuous functor : covers go to jointly epimorphic families precisely because the relevant sequents hold. The Diaconescu equivalence for geometric morphisms associates to this functor a geometric morphism . Conversely, pulling back along a geometric morphism gives a model. The constructions on models and their homomorphisms are inverse up to natural isomorphism, yielding
naturally in . This proves the required classifying property, not merely classification of set-valued models.