Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 23 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
In a Grothendieck topos defineThe coproduct universal property gives , naturally. Thus . On any sheaf presentation, is the composite of the constant-presheaf functor with sheafification. The former preserves finite limits pointwise, and the latter is left exact, so preserves finite limits. Therefore these functors define a geometric morphism .
For uniqueness, let be any such geometric morphism. Its inverse image is a left adjoint and preserves the terminal object. Every set has the canonical coproduct decomposition , soThese isomorphisms respect all functions between sets, giving a natural isomorphism . The right adjoint is then unique up to the corresponding natural isomorphism, so . There is a unique geometric morphism to sets, up to isomorphism, called the global sections geometric morphism. This also applies to the degenerate topos.