Compact element

In the mathematical area of order theory, the compact 2 Examples

or nite elements of a partially ordered set are those
elements that cannot be subsumed by a supremum of The most basic example is obtained by considering
any non-empty directed set that does not already contain the power set of some set, ordered by subset inclu-
members above the compact element. sion. Within this complete lattice, the compact el-
Note that there are other notions of compactness in math- ements are exactly the nite sets. This justies the
ematics; also, the term "nite" in its normal set theoretic name nite element.
meaning does not coincide with the order-theoretic no-
The term compact is explained by considering the
tion of a nite element.
complete lattices of open sets of some topological
space, also ordered by subset inclusion. Within this
order, the compact elements are just the compact
1 Formal denition sets. Indeed, the condition for compactness in
join-semilattices translates immediately to the cor-
In a partially ordered set (P,) an element c is called com- responding denition.
pact (or nite) if it satises one of the following equivalent
conditions:
3 Algebraic posets
For every directed subset D of P, if D has a supre-
mum sup D and c sup D then c d for some ele- A poset in which every element is the supremum of the
ment d of D. compact elements below it is called an algebraic poset.
For every ideal I of P, if I has a supremum sup I and Such posets which are dcpos are much used in domain
c sup I then c is an element of I. theory.
As an important special case, an algebraic lattice is a
If the poset P additionally is a join-semilattice (i.e., if it complete lattice L, such that every element x of L is the
has binary suprema) then these conditions are equivalent supremum of the compact elements below x.
to the following statement: A typical example (which served as the motivation for the
name algebraic) is the following:
For every nonempty subset S of P, if S has a supre-
mum sup S and c sup S, then c sup T for some For any algebra A (for example, a group, a ring, a eld,
nite subset T of S. a lattice, etc.; or even a mere set without any operations),
let Sub(A) be the set of all substructures of A, i.e., of
all subsets of A which are closed under all operations of
In particular, if c = sup S, then c is the supremum of a
A (group addition, ring addition and multiplication, etc.)
nite subset of S.
Here the notion of substructure includes the empty sub-
These equivalences are easily veried from the deni- structure in case the algebra A has no nullary operations.
tions of the concepts involved. For the case of a join-
Then:
semilattice note that any set can be turned into a directed
set with the same supremum by closing under nite (non-
empty) suprema. The set Sub(A), ordered by set inclusion, is a lattice.

When considering directed complete partial orders or
complete lattices the additional requirements that the
specied suprema exist can of course be dropped. Note
also that a join-semilattice which is directed complete
is almost a complete lattice (possibly lacking a least el-
ement) -- see completeness (order theory) for details.
The greatest element of Sub(A) is the set A itself.
For any S, T in Sub(A), the greatest lower bound of
S and T is the set theoretic intersection of S and T;
the smallest upper bound is the subalgebra generated
by the union of S and T.

If it exists, the least element of a poset is always compact. The set Sub(A) is even a complete lattice. The great-
It may be that this is the only compact element, as the est lower bound of any family of substructures is
example of the real unit interval [0,1] shows. their intersection.

1
2 5 LITERATURE

The compact elements of Sub(A) are exactly the

nitely generated substructures of A.
Every substructure is the union of its nitely gen-
erated substructures; hence Sub(A) is an algebraic
lattice.

Also, a kind of converse holds: Every algebraic lattice is

isomorphic to Sub(A) for some algebra A.
There is another algebraic lattice which plays an impor-
tant role in universal algebra: For every algebra A we let
Con(A) be the set of all congruence relations on A. Each
congruence on A is a subalgebra of the product algebra
AxA, so Con(A) Sub(AxA). Again we have

Con(A), ordered by set inclusion, is a lattice.

The greatest element of Con(A) is the set AxA,

which is the congruence corresponding to the con-
stant homomorphism. The smallest congruence
is the diagonal of AxA, corresponding to isomor-
phisms.

Con(A) is a complete lattice.

The compact elements of Con(A) are exactly the
nitely generated congruences.
Con(A) is an algebraic lattice.

Again there is a converse: By a theorem of G. Grtzer

and E.T.Schmidt, every algebraic lattice is isomorphic to
Con(A) for some algebra A.

4 Applications
Compact elements are important in computer science in
the semantic approach called domain theory, where they
are considered as a kind of primitive element: the infor-
mation represented by compact elements cannot be ob-
tained by any approximation that does not already con-
tain this knowledge. Compact elements cannot be ap-
proximated by elements strictly below them. On the other
hand, it may happen that all non-compact elements can be
obtained as directed suprema of compact elements. This
is a desirable situation, since the set of compact elements
is often smaller than the original poset the examples
above illustrate this.

5 Literature
See the literature given for order theory and domain the-
ory.
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