Generalized Priestley Quasi-Orders

Abstract

We introduce generalized Priestley quasi-orders and show that subalgebras of bounded distributive meet-semilattices are dually characterized by means of generalized Priestley quasi-orders. This generalizes the well-known characterization of subalgebras of bounded distributive lattices by means of Priestley quasi-orders (Adams, Algebra Univers 3:216–228, 1973; Cignoli et al., Order 8(3):299–315, 1991; Schmid, Order 19(1):11–34, 2002). We also introduce Vietoris families and prove that homomorphic images of bounded distributive meet-semilattices are dually characterized by Vietoris families. We show that this generalizes the well-known characterization (Priestley, Proc Lond Math Soc 24(3):507–530, 1972) of homomorphic images of a bounded distributive lattice by means of closed subsets of its Priestley space. We also show how to modify the notions of generalized Priestley quasi-order and Vietoris family to obtain the dual characterizations of subalgebras and homomorphic images of bounded implicative semilattices, which generalize the well-known dual characterizations of subalgebras and homomorphic images of Heyting algebras (Esakia, Sov Math Dokl 15:147–151, 1974).