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.
A first-order signature specifies sorts, function symbols with specified input and output sorts, and relation symbols with specified input sorts. A coherent formula is built from atomic relations and equalities using , , finite logical conjunctions, finite logical disjunctions, and existential quantification. A coherent theory is a set of sequents between coherent formulas in a common finite context; its axioms are interpreted as universally closed implications. Neither general negation nor universal quantification is allowed inside coherent formulas.
One complete presentation of coherent logic consists of the following axiom and rule schemes, together with the theory's sequents. All displayed formulas have compatible sorts and contexts, and bound variables can be renamed.
Identity and cut give and
Substitution replaces the free variables of any derivable sequent by well-typed terms, avoiding capture. Contexts can be enlarged by unused variables, and permuted or renamed.
The finite-meet rules are , , , and
The finite-join rules are , , , and
Include distributivity .
Existential introduction is . Existential elimination is
where is absent from . Equivalently, the quantifier is left adjoint to weakening along the context projection. Include the Frobenius rule in coherent logic
It can also be derived from the usual coherent natural-deduction rules.
Equality has and the substitution scheme
including atomic formulas and terms of the signature. Symmetry, transitivity and congruence for all functions and relations follow. These schemes impose no unintended inhabitedness axiom on a sort.
The coherent syntactic category has objects formulas in context , up to renaming. An arrow from to is an equivalence class, modulo provable equivalence, of formulas satisfying
and
These are provably total functional relations. The identity is the equality graph restricted by . If and are consecutive arrows, their composite is represented by . Equality, cut and existential rules give the category laws.
A coherent category has finite limits, pullback-stable regular-epi/mono image factorizations, and finite unions of subobjects stable under pullback. We verify these structures syntactically. The terminal object is the empty-context truth formula. Products conjoin formulas in disjoint contexts; equalizers add equality of the two output tuples. For a functional relation , its image in the target is represented by . Its factor onto that image is regular epic: two arrows out of the image agreeing on the source agree by existential elimination, and the same argument with the kernel pair gives the coequalizer property. Frobenius makes these image factorizations stable under pullback.
Every subobject of is represented by a formula with . Indeed, take the existential image of a monic functional relation; uniqueness makes its map to that image an isomorphism. Subobject inclusion is exactly provable implication. Finite unions are consequently disjunctions, with bottom as the empty subobject; distributivity and substitution make them pullback-stable. Hence is coherent.
The conservative syntactic model interprets a sort by , a function by its term graph, and a relation by its atomic-formula subobject. Induction on coherent formulas shows that is interpreted by the subobject of its context object. It satisfies every theory axiom by construction. Conversely, a sequent holds in this model exactly when the corresponding subobject inclusion holds, which is exactly derivability in . Therefore
This is conservativity for coherent sequents, not a claim about non-coherent formulas.
The required condition is the common-refinement condition for nonempty-sieve coverage: for every pair , , there are arrows , with
Necessity follows by pulling back the nonempty sieve generated by along : a member of the pullback sieve supplies such an . Conversely, this condition makes the pullback of every nonempty sieve on a category nonempty. The maximal sieve is nonempty, and the transitivity axiom holds: if a sieve is locally covering along every member of a nonempty covering sieve , choose and then ; their composite is in . Hence the nonempty sieves form a Grothendieck topology, called the atomic topology.
For all functions between nonempty finite sets, the two maps from a singleton to different points of a two-point set have no common refinement. Every potential domain remains nonempty, so the two constant composites cannot agree. The condition fails.
For surjections it holds: is nonempty and both projections are surjective. Work from now on in a small skeleton of nonempty finite sets and surjections. Every morphism is a regular epimorphism, with kernel pair , and is the coequalizer of that pair in .
A matching family in a representable on the sieve generated by is determined by a surjection equalizing that kernel pair. It factors uniquely through a function , which is surjective because is. This gives the unique amalgamation. A general nonempty covering sieve contains such an ; after amalgamating there, common refinements with any other member force agreement on the entire sieve. Therefore every representable is a sheaf, so this atomic site is subcanonical.
For any sheaf , every restriction is injective: equality after a covering arrow forces equality by the separated part of the sheaf condition. We shall also use descent along any surjection :
is an equalizer of sets. These are the descent identities for the atomic finite-surjection site.
Consider primitive , with a common restriction along , . Suppose have but . Let identify just the two points . Define the finite nonempty set
Both projections are surjective, since contains every diagonal pair. There is also a surjection
Indeed the target consists of diagonal pairs, which are reached because is surjective, and the two off-diagonal pairs corresponding to , reached by and .
Since , the common-restriction equality gives . If are the target kernel-pair projections, this is
Injectivity of gives the kernel-pair matching condition on . Descent along then writes , contradicting primitivity. Thus ; interchange the roles to obtain equality. This is the primitive-element kernel rigidity lemma.
Equal kernels produce a unique bijection with . Now , and injectivity implies
In particular equivalent primitive elements have the same cardinality and differ only by transport along a bijection.
Every element descends to a primitive one: whenever it is not primitive, descend along a surjection reducing the cardinality by one; this process terminates at or before cardinality one. Kernel rigidity shows that all primitive ancestors of lie in one equivalence class. Let be the elements with primitive-ancestor class . Restriction along a surjection preserves this class, so each is a subfunctor and
pointwise. Each is a sheaf. A matching family glues in , and one member along a nonempty covering arrow already determines the primitive class of the glued element; it must be .
Choose a representative primitive of . The Yoneda map named by has image exactly . It reaches all descendants of , and every equivalent primitive ancestor is its transport along a bijection. It is therefore pointwise surjective onto and is epic as a map of sheaves. We obtain the primitive decomposition of an atomic finite-surjection sheaf
This includes the empty coproduct for an empty sheaf.
Each nonempty is an atom in a topos. If a sheaf subobject has an element at some , membership descends along the covering surjection , so belongs to . All its restrictions then belong to , giving . Thus every subobject of any selects entire components of this coproduct, and its complementary selection is again a sheaf subobject. Its characteristic map sends selected components to and all others to .
The constant two-element presheaf is a sheaf: a matching family on a nonempty sieve has the same value on all its arrows, since any two have a common refinement. The value extends uniquely. It therefore supplies these characteristic maps, with truth the inclusion of the value. Equivalently, a J-closed sieve here is either empty or maximal, because every nonempty sieve covers. Hence
Work in the domain-classifying site of part (ii), with generic domain . For finitely presented rings , the object is an available stage. Tuples of sections of are locally represented by tuples of actual elements of , because is locally surjective and sheafification preserves finite products. It is therefore enough to prove the requested implication on such representatives.
We first note the empty-cover criterion for the domain-classifying site: is initial if and only if the finitely presented ring is the zero ring. One direction is the generating empty cover. Conversely, any nonzero ring has a maximal ideal and hence a homomorphism to a field. That field is a set-based integral domain and defines a point of the classifying topos. The inverse image of at this point is , which is nonempty for the chosen field . It therefore cannot be the inverse image of an initial object. This uses only the ordinary maximal-ideal existence principle externally, not excluded middle in the internal logic.
Suppose represent a tuple lying in the negation of the all-units subobject. Write and consider the finitely presented localization of a ring
Every is invertible in , since is an inverse. But the pulled-back tuple still lies in the negation of the all-units subobject. Thus the whole stage maps into both that subobject and its negation, forcing this stage to be initial. The empty-cover criterion gives .
The localization is zero precisely when in for some integer , by the equality criterion in localization. Repeated use of the generating zero-product covers now gives a covering family
Indeed, splitting and inducting first forces locally; splitting the product then forces one locally. More formally the two inductions are coherent derivations from the zero-product axiom, so their quotient families belong to the generated topology. The sheaf semantics of disjunction consequently gives
This is the finite-tuple weak-field property of the generic integral domain. The argument is intuitionistically valid inside the topos, although its description of the site uses ordinary external set theory. There is no appeal to preservation of negation by an arbitrary geometric inverse image.
For the converse assertion, let be any internally nontrivial commutative unital ring satisfying the implication. Assume . If and were both units, multiplying by their two inverses would give , contradicting nontriviality. Therefore
The assumed two-variable implication then gives . Together with nontriviality this is exactly the internal integral-domain axiom. Hence a nontrivial ring satisfying the two-variable case is an integral domain.
For example, the ordinary integral domain fails the one-variable implication at . This does not contradict the generic result: the displayed implication uses negation and is non-coherent, so it need not survive the inverse image that classifies an arbitrary set-based domain.
A small cogenerating family , with a set, distinguishes unequal parallel morphisms by postcomposition: for , some has . Being well-powered means that the subobjects of each object form a set up to the usual equivalence of monomorphisms. These hypotheses make the solution-set condition automatic.
The dual formulation uses a cocomplete category, being a well-copowered category and having a small generating family, and concludes that every small-colimit-preserving functor has a right adjoint.