The two introductory requests can be settled before the lettered applications. In the functor category , finite limits and finite unions of subobjects are pointwise. The component of the diagonal at is ordinary equality on . Its only possible complement is
This forms a subfunctor exactly when each sends unequal elements to unequal elements, equivalently when every is injective. In that case and the diagonal are disjoint and their union is at every component. Conversely, a diagonal complement must have these components and be stable under every transition map. Hence is decidable exactly when every transition map is injective.
Regard a monoid as a one-object category; a covariant set-valued functor is a left M-set. Give the diagonal left action . Let
Right multiplication on the first coordinate commutes with the diagonal left action, so remains equivariant. The formula obeys and . Evaluation is
It is equivariant because .
For an equivariant , define
This is equivariant in , and . Evaluation recovers . Conversely, currying the evaluation of a map recovers that map by its equivariance. This proves the exponential universal property and the natural identification
with exactly the stated action. In particular, decidability in a set-valued functor category says that a left M-set is decidable if and only if each of its action maps is injective.
For each object , characteristic maps identify with . These subobject posets carry a natural Heyting algebra structure. Truth and falsity classify and the empty subobject. Intersections define , unions define , and implication is characterized by
These operations commute with pullback, giving arrows on and the internal Heyting algebra of truth values. Concretely, the order relation on is the subobject where ; its characteristic map is implication. Negation is .
If has truth value , its quasi-closed local operator is
This is double negation relative to the bottom value . In the Heyting algebra interval , relative implication is inherited and relative negation is . Also . Therefore the displayed map is the composite of adjoining and relative double negation. It is inflationary, idempotent, fixes truth and preserves binary meets, so it is a Lawvere-Tierney topology. Its value at bottom is .
The truth values of its sheaf topos are the fixed elements . They have bottom , inherited meet and join . Their relative negation is , which is again fixed because . The relative double-negation law holds on every fixed element, and
Thus every subobject in the sheaf topos has a complement: every quasi-closed subtopos is Boolean. This identifies its internal logic, not merely the global truth-value lattice.
Now work in . The arrow is a subterminal object there; internally it supplies a freely varying generic truth value . Let be sheafification for a local operator for its quasi-closed topology, and let be the slice geometric morphism. The composite has inverse image .
To prove surjectivity, take any mono in , classified by . Its pullback along has predicate , independent of the generic . If sends the mono to an isomorphism, it is -dense in the slice, so
for all . Pull back this identity along the graph . Substituting gives , and therefore . Thus the original mono was already invertible.
For parallel arrows , equality of their inverse images makes the inverse image of their equalizer invertible. The preceding mono argument makes the equalizer invertible and hence . Therefore is faithful, and the composite is a surjective geometric morphism. A fixed double-negation subtopos can erase information; allowing the generic relative bottom is what detects every original predicate.
For the completeness consequence, let be coherent and use its classifying topos with the generic model. Its conservative syntactic interpretation makes an underivable coherent sequent fail as a subobject inclusion. Pulling this model into the Boolean cover constructed above preserves coherent formulas and still refutes that inclusion, because the inverse image is faithful and reflects containment. In the Boolean topos, the difference between antecedent and consequent is a nonzero complemented subobject. Slicing over that difference gives a nondegenerate Boolean topos with a global tuple satisfying the antecedent and the negation of the consequent.
Classical first-order deduction is sound in a Boolean topos. Hence together with constants for that tuple, the antecedent and the negated consequent is classically consistent: a proof of contradiction would hold in the nondegenerate sliced model. The ordinary Henkin construction supplies a set model of this consistent theory. Briefly, extend it by witness constants, complete it to a maximal consistent theory, form the term structure modulo provable equality, and prove the truth lemma by induction on formulas. For possibly empty sorts use the standard encoding by sort predicates and functional graph relations, without asserting sort inhabitance; the constants for the chosen tuple assert only the needed witnesses. The resulting set model is a countermodel to the original sequent.
Consequently a coherent sequent valid in every set-valued model of a coherent theory is derivable in coherent logic. The Boolean cover supplies the crucial passage from the generic intuitionistic countermodel to consistency with classical negation; the final set-model step uses ordinary first-order completeness via its Henkin proof, rather than an assumption that every Boolean topos has points.
In a small regular category , the regular coverage has one-arrow covers: each regular epimorphism is a covering family by itself. Identity maps, composites and pullbacks of such arrows are again covers, so this is a basis for a Grothendieck topology. A presheaf is a sheaf precisely when every compatible section over a covering arrow descends uniquely along that arrow.
It is subcanonical. A section of the representable presheaf over is a map . Its matching condition is on the kernel pair . Since a regular epimorphism is the coequalizer of its kernel pair, there is a unique with . This is exactly the sheaf condition for .
For a subfunctor of a regular-coverage sheaf, define local membership by
This is a subfunctor. If and witnesses membership, pull back along ; the resulting cover of witnesses membership of , because is stable under restriction.
It is a sheaf as well. Let cover and let satisfy the kernel-pair matching condition. The sheaf gives a unique with . Choose a cover with . The composite is a cover of and witnesses . Uniqueness comes from . Thus the inclusion is a mono between sheaves and is closed for the associated local operator.
Moreover, any closed subobject containing is itself a sheaf. If , its restriction along a witnessing cover lies in , and the sheaf condition for descends it to a section in . Its image in is by uniqueness. Hence is the least closed subobject containing , and
This proves the local membership closure for the regular coverage, with a single regular epimorphism as witness.
Suppose is the union, in the sheaf topos, of a family of subsheaves . The union in presheaves is the pointwise union ; its closure is the union in sheaves. Thus . A witnessing cover belongs to for one index . The two restrictions of to its kernel pair agree. Since is a subsheaf, this matching section descends in to . Every map is the restriction of along , so . Therefore every representable sheaf is irreducible, even with respect to arbitrary unions. There are no empty covering families in this coverage, and also shows that the representable cannot be initial.
Finally, in the regular syntactic category of a regular theory, the context formula defines an object . Each formula defines a mono , and the associated representable subsheaf is its interpretation inside in the generic model. A derivation of the coherent disjunction says that these finitely many subsheaves have union . Irreducibility gives for some . The Yoneda embedding is full and faithful, since the coverage is subcanonical, and therefore reflects this isomorphism. Hence is invertible in the syntactic category: entails . Thus
The disjunction is an outer coherent conclusion; the theory and all constituent formulas are regular. This disjunction property of regular theories follows from single-arrow descent, rather than from ordinary first-order compactness.
Let be the full subcategory of quotients of decidable objects. It is closed under quotients, by composition of epimorphisms, and under small coproducts, by part (ii). It is also closed under subobjects: pull back a decidable cover along . The resulting cover of has domain a subobject of , hence a decidable object.
The terminal object lies in . If and are decidable covers, their product is an epimorphism . Part (ii) makes its domain decidable. Thus products, and then equalizers as subobjects of products, remain in . The inclusion preserves finite limits.
We construct a coreflective subcategory rather than claim that every object has a decidable cover. For , let be the union of all subobjects of which lie in . The Grothendieck topos is well-powered, so these subobjects form a set. Choose a decidable cover of each and take their coproduct. Its map to has image , so is itself a quotient of a decidable object. Any map from an object of to has image in , and therefore factors uniquely through . This gives
The induced idempotent comonad on preserves finite limits: is a right adjoint and preserves those limits. Its counit is the inclusion , and .
The coalgebras of this comonad are exactly the objects of . A coalgebra structure is a section of the monic counit, forcing the counit to be an isomorphism; conversely an object already in has the unique such structure. Thus . Part (i) now gives
This argument proves the required elementary-topos conclusion without presuming a small family of decidable generators for .
A decidable object in a topos has a decomposition , with representing inequality. In the internal logic of a topos, equality on is decidable. These categorical complements behave well under pullback.
For a subobject , pull back the displayed decomposition along . The diagonal pulls back to , while pulls back to its complement. Hence every subobject of a decidable object is decidable; the subobject itself need not be complemented in .
For two decidable objects, the diagonals of and give four disjoint summands of , according as each coordinate pair is equal or unequal. The both-equal summand is , and the other three give its complement. The terminal object is decidable, so induction gives closure under finite products, including the empty product.
For a family of decidable objects with an existing coproduct , products distribute over this coproduct, giving
The coproduct injections in a topos are disjoint. The diagonal consists of in each summand, and has complement
Consequently every existing coproduct of decidable objects is decidable, including the initial object. In a Grothendieck topos all small coproducts exist. No assertion that arbitrary products preserve decidability is used.
Write the comonad as and its category of coalgebras for a comonad as . A coalgebra for a comonad is a map with and . A morphism satisfies . Let be the forgetful functor and let be the cofree coalgebra. The adjunction has the explicit correspondence
We construct the three pieces of the elementary topos structure.
Because preserves finite limits, each underlying finite limiting cone has a unique coalgebra structure induced by the structures on its vertices. The counit and coassociativity equations can be checked after its jointly monic projections. Thus creates finite limits and reflects isomorphisms. A morphism of coalgebras is monic exactly when its underlying morphism is monic, by the diagonal criterion using the created pullback.
For exponentials in a coalgebra topos, fix coalgebras and and put in . On the cofree coalgebra there is an underlying evaluation
The two maps
use in the second expression. Transpose them in to maps , and then transpose across to coalgebra morphisms . Take their equalizer in .
An underlying map corresponds to a coalgebra map . The equation saying that the original map is a coalgebra morphism is precisely , since for the structure . By the cofree adjunction, this is equivalent to , hence to unique factorization through . Therefore
naturally in . This constructs the required exponential object.
For the subobject classifier of a coalgebra topos, let be the underlying subobject classifier, and let classify the mono . Its cofree transpose is the coalgebra endomorphism
Define as the equalizer of and . The transpose of factors through this equalizer and gives .
Indeed, for a subobject classified by , the pullback has characteristic map . It is always contained in , by naturality of the counit. Equality holds exactly when restricts to a coalgebra structure on ; its axioms then follow by composing with the monomorphisms and . Under , the classifying map becomes . The equality of subobjects is . Transposing this equality gives , so exactly the coalgebra subobjects correspond to maps . Their pullback of is the desired subcoalgebra, and uniqueness follows from uniqueness of .
Thus we have finite limits, exponentials and a subobject classifier:
The construction does not assume that preserves the underlying exponentials or underlying subobject classifier.