Monoid Properties as Invariants of Toposes of Monoid Actions

We systematically investigate, for a monoid $M$, how topos-theoretic properties of $\mathbf{PSh}(M)$, including the properties of being atomic, strongly compact, local, totally connected or cohesive, correspond to semigroup-theoretic properties of $M$.


Introduction
Let M be a monoid, viewed as a category with one object. The category of right Msets, also called M -acts in the semigroup theory literature, is precisely the presheaf topos PSh(M ). Recently, the authors of the present work established representation theorems for toposes of the form PSh(M ); that is, toposes of right M -sets for a discrete monoid M . In [35], the second named author showed using topos-theoretic methods that any topos with a surjective essential point (equivalently, admitting a monadic and comonadic functor to the topos Set of sets) is of this form. The first named author showed in [20] that such a topos can also be represented as the topos of equivariant sheaves on a posetal groupoid.
The topos PSh(M ) holds a great deal more structure than the monoid M alone. In particular, it is the natural setting in which to define a great variety of constructions and tools for examining the subtler properties of monoids. Perhaps more significantly, being a Grothendieck topos, the category PSh(M ) can be compared, either indirectly through its properties or directly via equivalences or geometric morphisms, to other toposes. Studying these comparisons between toposes in order to get a better understanding of the structures presenting them (in this case discrete monoids) forms the backbone of the 'toposes as bridges' philosophy of Caramello [8]. In this paper, we take the indirect approach, investigating correspondences between properties of the representing monoids and well-understood properties of the corresponding toposes from the topos-theoretic literature. In particular, it was noted in [35] that several important classes of monoid, the representing monoid is unique up to isomorphism. It follows that the properties identifying these classes are Morita-invariant, and should therefore correspond to topostheoretic invariants, some of which we have been able to identify.
The "purely semigroup-theoretic content" of many of the results presented in this article have turned out to be known results, in that after deriving them we discovered references for them in existing literature. However, this is typical when establishing a category-theoretic approach to any area of mathematics: reproving elementary results in context is a necessary first step in applying topos-theoretic machinery, since it illuminates the efficacy and potential for generalisation of this approach. We believe that topos theory will ultimately be a fruitful source of new results in semigroup theory. Reciprocally, monoids shall provide a useful source of examples, properties, constructions and intuition for toposes distinct from the usual geometric and logical perspectives, and simpler than the larger context of presheaf toposes over categories with several objects. We hope this article will achieve our goal of drawing together the research communities in semigroup theory and topos theory.
There has been recent interest in the toposes PSh(M ) from a geometrical point of view. Connes and Consani, in their construction of the Arithmetic Site [12] [13], considered the special case where M is the monoid of nonzero natural numbers under multiplication. In this case, the points of PSh(M ) are related to the finite adeles in number theory. Related toposes are studied in [36], [19] and [30]. As mentioned in [20], this geometric study of monoids is inspired by the idea of "algebraic geometry over F 1 " [32]. In this philosophy, commutative monoids are thought of as dual to affine F 1schemes, while the topos PSh(M ) is seen as the topos of quasi-coherent sheaves on the space corresponding to the monoid M , see [34].
This paper is organised as follows. In Section 1 we recap the necessary topos theory and the relevant content of the papers referenced above, including the functors constituting the global sections geometric morphism which is intrinsic to a Grothendieck topos. This geometric morphism automatically has many restrictive properties in the case of PSh(M ) for any monoid M , which we establish. We also present a tensor-hom description of adjunctions applicable to the components of the geometric morphisms.
In the main body of the paper, Section 2, we examine the consequences of additional properties of PSh(M ) on the monoid M . A great number of properties of geometric morphisms in the topos theory literature are inspired from geometry, since any topological space or locale has an associated Grothendieck topos (its category of sheaves), and the global sections functor of such a topos has properties determined by the properties of the original space; we therefore accompany our exposition for monoids with the parallel analysis for topological spaces, for which results are readily available in the topos theory literature. Our arguments are guided in some cases by the examples of toposes of group actions periodically presented in Johnstone's reference text [25].
In the Conclusion we explain how future work will extend the results accumulated in this paper. We are aware of some properties of monoids which are expressible in terms of categorical properties of PSh(M ) but which we have not (yet) been able to express in terms of the global sections morphism; we outline these and some further properties of toposes which we intend to explore. In [35], beyond the characterisation of toposes of the form PSh(M ), the stronger result of a 2-equivalence between a 2-category of monoids and a 2-category on the corresponding toposes was demonstrated. We explain how another direction of research will take advantage of this 2-equivalence, and how the results obtained in this paper might be relativised.
following the presentation at SYCO6.

Toposes of Discrete Monoid Actions
For a reader with a limited background in topos theory, a (by now classical) introductory text is Mac Lane and Moerdijk's [31]. This in particular includes exercises (at the end of Chapter I, for example) for identifying topos-theoretic structures in toposes of the form PSh(M ) and more generally in presheaf toposes; we recall some of this structure here. For two right M -sets X and Y , we will use the shorthand of fixed points under the action of M , • The constant sheaf functor ∆ sending a set Y to the same set with trivial M -action, • The connected components functor C sending an M -set X to its set of components under the action of M (that is, to its quotient under the equivalence relation generated by x ∼ x · m for x ∈ X, m ∈ M ). It should also be noted that for a set Y , the M -action on Hom Set (M ,Y ) by m ∈ M sends f to (n → f (mn)), while the M action on Y × M is by right multiplication on the M -component.
Recall that in general a point of a topos E is a geometric morphism Set → E; a topos is said to have enough points if the inverse images functors of all its points are jointly conservative. The inverse image functor of the canonical point of PSh(M ) is the forgetful functor, which is thus automatically conservative, so every topos of this form has enough points.
While the canonical point is determined by the choice of the presenting monoid M , the global sections geometric morphism is uniquely determined by the topos, so that its properties are automatically Morita-invariant (that is, independent of the choice of presenting monoid). In this paper we shall primarily concern ourselves with analysis of the global sections morphism. Since the inverse image functor ∆ of this morphism has an (automatically Set-indexed) left adjoint C, the global sections morphism of PSh(M ) meets the definition of being locally connected found at the beginning of [25,Section C3.3]. We equivalently say that PSh(M ) is locally connected for any M .
Toposes are cartesian closed, which is to say that for each pair of objects P, Q in a topos E there is an exponential object Q P such that for any third object X, we have an isomorphism natural in X and Q, i.e. the functor (−) P is right adjoint to − × P . In particular, for X = Q P , the identity map on the right hand side corresponds on the left hand side to the evaluation map ev : In E = PSh(M ), for two M -sets P, Q, the exponential Q P has as underlying set Hom M (M × P, Q). The right M -action is defined as for f ∈ Q P , m, n ∈ M , p ∈ P (see [31, I.6]). The evaluation map is then given by If F : F → E is a functor preserving binary products, then there is a natural comparison morphism ϑ P,Q : obtained by applying F to the evaluation map (3), and then transposing back across the product-exponential adjunction in E. If ϑ P,Q is a isomorphism for every pair of objects P, Q, then we say that F is cartesian-closed, or that F preserves exponentials. Note that the inverse image functor of a locally connected geometric morphism is always cartesian closed, by [25,Proposition C3.3.1], so that in particular ∆ is cartesian closed. The condition of cartesian-closedness can be weakened in two directions: either by restricting to a smaller collection of pairs P, Q of objects on which ϑ P,Q is required to be an isomorphism, or by asking that ϑ P,Q have a property weaker than being an isomorphism. We discuss some cases of the former, applied to the connected components functor C, in Section 2.6 and cases of the latter in Section 2.10. Toposes also have subobject classifiers. That is, there is an object Ω E in a topos E equipped with a subobject ⊤ : 1 ֒→ Ω E such that every subobject S ֒→ A, for A an object of the topos, is the pullback of ⊤ along a unique classifying morphism s : The subobject classifier of E = PSh(M ) is the set Ω of right ideals of M equipped with the inverse image action for left multiplication, which for a right ideal I and m ∈ M is defined by I ·m = {m ′ ∈ M | mm ′ ∈ I}. The morphism ⊤ : 1 → Ω identifies M ∈ Ω as the largest ideal of M , so that the subobject S of an object A classified by a morphism s : A → Ω is the subset of A on the elements a with s(a) = M .
If F : F → E is a functor preserving monomorphisms, then there is a canonical morphism classifying the subobject F (⊤) of F (Ω F ). F is said to preserve the subobject classifier if χ is an isomorphism. The direct image functor of a geometric morphism preserves the subobject classifier if and only if it is hyperconnected, by [25, Proposition A4.6.6(v)]. For the global sections morphism of a Grothendieck topos, this requires the subobject classifier to admit exactly two morphisms from 1, which can be restated as the property that the topos is two-valued, having exactly two subterminal objects. This is true of PSh(M ): its terminal object is the one-element M -set 1, whose only proper sub-M -set is empty. Thus Γ preserves the subobject classifier, and PSh(M ) is hyperconnected over Set, for any monoid M . Finally, if a functor F preserves monomorphisms and finite products, we say F is logical if it preserves the subobject classifier and exponentials. A geometric morphism whose direct image is logical is automatically an equivalence ([25, A4.6.7]), so Γ is logical if and only if M is trivial; this appears as a condition in Theorem 2.62. We shall see what happens when ∆ is logical in Theorem 2.4. However, since ∆ already has so many strong preservation properties for an arbitrary monoid M , always having a left and right adjoint and preserving exponentials, that theorem is the only one we identify in this paper expressed in terms of properties of ∆.
Several of the properties of toposes we examine are geometric, in the sense that they inherit their names from properties of toposes Sh(X) of sheaves on a topological space (or more generally a locale), X. Accordingly, we supplement most of the definitions in this paper with an illustration of what they mean for toposes of this form. In doing so, it will occasionally benefit us to exploit the equivalence, demonstrated in [31,Corollary II.6.3], between Sh(X) and the category LH/X of local homeomorphisms over X, whose objects are local homeomorphisms orétale maps E → X, and whose morphisms are continuous maps making the resulting triangle over X commute. Passing through this equivalence, the components of the global sections morphism f : Sh(X) → Set acquire new interpretations. f * (π : E → X) is the set of global sections of π, i.e. the set of continuous maps s : X → E such that π • s = id X (this is where the name of this functor comes from for a general topos). f * sends a set A to the A-fold cover π 1 : X × A → X of X. The inverse image functor f * has a left adjoint f ! if and only if X is a locally connected space, in which case f ! (π : E → X) is the set of connected components of E, which is where the name of locally connected geometric morphisms originates. Finally, X is connected if and only if f * is full and faithful, which is why a geometric morphism with this property is called connected. Since hyperconnectedness of a topos implies connectedness, toposes of monoid actions are connected and locally connected over Set, whence toposes of sheaves over connected, locally connected spaces are a good source of intuition for their properties. It should be stressed, however, that the global sections morphism of Sh(X) is only hyperconnected if X is the one-point space, so these comparisons can never be realised as equivalences of toposes outside of the case where both the space and monoid are trivial. This is a strength of our propertyoriented approach: it allows us to draw formal comparisons between classes of objects even when their corresponding toposes do not coincide.
As a final note, in our examples we will always talk about the topos Sh(X) of sheaves on a sober topological space X, which means that the points of X correspond bijectively with the points of Sh(X), and that this topos has enough points. In instances where the requirement of having enough points is not explicitly mentioned, the results can be extended to encompass toposes of sheaves on suitable locales, should the reader desire it.

Tensors and Homs, Flatness and Projectivity
Being a Grothendieck topos, the category of right M -sets has all limits and colimits. Since the functor U from (1) preserves both limits and colimits, it follows that colimits and limits can be computed on underlying sets. We will use the following notations: • ∅ for the initial object, i.e. the empty right M -set; • 1 for the terminal object, i.e. the right M -set with one element; • A ⊔ B for the coproduct (disjoint union) of two right M -sets A and B; • i∈I X i for the coproduct (disjoint union) of a family of right M -sets {X i } i∈I ; • lim − →i∈I X i for the colimit of a filtered diagram {X i } i∈I .

Hom-sets and projectivity
For a monoid N and two right N -sets A and B, we can consider the hom-set so that for fixed B we get a functor PSh(N ) → Set. Clearly, the global sections functor Γ of PSh(N ) can be expressed as Hom N (1, −), for 1 the trivial right N -set, so that properties of Γ can be expressed as properties of this N -set. Let M be another monoid and suppose that B is additionally equipped with a compatible left M -action, such that for all m ∈ M , b ∈ B and n ∈ N (we will say that B is a left-M -right-N -set). Then the inverse image action on Hom N (B, A) makes it a right M -set, so that Hom N (B, −) defines a functor PSh(N ) → PSh(M ).
The following definitions work in any topos, but for clarity we formulate it in our special case of a topos PSh(N ) with N a monoid. 1. X is connected/indecomposable; 2. Hom M (X, −) preserves binary coproducts; 3. X is non-empty, and X ∼ = X 1 ⊔ X 2 implies that either X 1 is empty or X 2 is empty; 4. |C(X)| = 1, with C the connected components functor of (1).
Proof. This can be shown as an exercise, but it also follows from more general results in topos theory, as follows. In particular, the empty set is not indecomposable. Note that in the semigroup literature, M -sets are sometimes assumed to be non-empty by definition, see e.g. [26]. We will not follow this convention, because it prevents the category of right M -sets from being a topos.
A right M -set will be called free if each connected component is isomorphic to M (with right M -action given by multiplication). Free and projective right M -sets are related in the following way: Proposition 1.3. For M a monoid and P a right M -set, the following are equivalent: 1. P is projective; 2. P is a retract of a free right M -set; 3. P ∼ = i∈I e i M for some family {e i } i∈I of idempotents in M .
We should note that the topos-theoretic definition of finite presentability agrees with the one from universal algebra:  for some finitely generated free right M -sets F and F ′ and morphisms a, b.

Tensors and flatness
Consider a right M -set A and a left M -set B. Recall that the tensor product of A and B over M is defined as the set: where ∼ is the equivalence relation generated by for all a ∈ A, b ∈ B and m ∈ M . The equivalence class of a pair (a, b) is denoted by a⊗b. An alternative expression for the connected components functor is C(X) = X ⊗ M 1, where 1 is the trivial left M -set. Thus properties of C can be expressed as properties of this trivial left M -set; later in this section we shall establish the terminology we will use for these properties. More generally, suppose that there is a monoid N and a compatible right N -action on B, as in (10) [35,Section 4]). More generally, we say that B is: • monomorphism-flat if F preserves monomorphisms.
• finitely product-flat if F preserves finite products.
• product-flat if F preserves products.
• flat if F preserves finite limits.
The definitions for right M -sets are analogous. It is very important to note that this naming system differs from the naming conventions in semigroup theory literature, notably that of Bulman-Fleming and Laan in [6]. Our terminology is the same when it comes to 'finitely product-flat', 'equalizer-flat' and 'pullback-flat'. However, what we call 'monomorphism-flat' is called 'flat' in their paper. Our justification for this departure is that our naming system aligns more closely with that in the category theory literature. More precisely: Definition 1.7 ([31, VII.6, Definition 2]). Recall that a functor F : C → Set is called flat (or filtering) if: 1. F (C) = ∅ for some object C of C; 2. for elements a ∈ F (A) and b ∈ F (B) there is an object C, morphisms f : C → A and g : C → B, and an element c ∈ F (C) such that F (f )(c) = a and F (f )(c) = b; 3. for morphisms f, g : there is a morphism h : C → B and an element c ∈ F (C) such that f h = gh and We then have the following correspondence between our definition of flatness for M -sets and the notion of flatness for functors. It follows from the definitions that, for example, flat left M -sets are pullback-flat. However, other interactions between the different notions of flatness are not so clear. We present some general facts which simplify the situation. These are (by now) well-known in category theory literature thanks to authors such as Freyd and Scedrov in [15], but were reached independently by semigroup theorists such as Bulman-Fleming in [5]. We reproduce proofs here anyway. 1. Suppose that F is nontrivial (i.e. F (A) = ∅ for at least one A). If F preserves binary products, then it also preserves the terminal object; thus in order for a left M -set B to be finitely product-flat, it suffices that B = ∅ and − ⊗ M B preserves binary products. 2. If F preserves pullbacks, then it also preserves equalizers, so a pullback-flat object is equalizer-flat. 3. If F preserves pullbacks and the terminal object, then it preserves all finite limits, so an object is flat if and only if it is indecomposable and pullback-flat. Proof.
1. If F preserves binary products, then in particular the natural map is an isomorphism. Surjectivity shows that F (1) has at most one element. If where δ is the diagonal map. Pullbacks are preserved by F , so is a composite of pullback squares; the right hand one being a pullback is a consequence of the fact that the diagonal δ of F (B) in PSh(N ) factors through F δ by the universal property of F (B) × F (B). It follows that F (E) can be identified with the equalizer of the diagram , so F preserves equalizers. 3. Suppose that F preserves pullbacks and the terminal object. A binary product can be seen as a pullback over the terminal object, so F preserves binary products (and in fact all finite products). Moreover, F preserves equalizers by (2). Any functor preserving finite products and equalizers preserves all finite limits, by a similar argument to the above after expressing a given finite limit as an equalizer of morphisms between finite products.
In the category of sets, since arbitrary coproducts are pseudo-filtered in the sense of [4], they commute with connected limits, such as pullbacks and equalizers. The same holds in the category of M -sets for M a monoid, since colimits and limits are computed on underlying sets. So we get the following:

Groups and Atomicity
The first property we study is expressed in terms of the logical structure of the toposes involved.
. A geometric morphism is atomic if its inverse image functor is logical. For a general geometric morphism this implies local connectedness. We say a Grothendieck topos is atomic if its global sections geometric morphism to Set is.
For Grothendieck toposes with enough points, atomicity coincides with a property of the internal logic of the topos.

Definition 2.2.
A topos E is Boolean if its subobject classifier is an internal Boolean algebra, or equivalently if every subobject of an object of E has a complement. Example 2.3. For a sober topological space X, Sh(X) has enough points, so we have by [25,Lemma C3.5

.3] that Sh(X) is atomic if and only if it is Boolean, if and only if
X is a discrete topological space.
As already observed in [35,Corollary 7.3], we have the following: It should be noted that many of the remaining properties explored in this paper either trivially hold for groups or are incompatible with the property of being a group (for example, a group with any kind of absorbing element is automatically trivial).

Right-factorable Finite Generation and Strong Compactness
A Grothendieck topos is called compact if its geometric morphism to Set is proper, which is to say that it preserves filtered colimits of subterminal objects. Since any hyperconnected geometric morphism is proper (cf. [25, C3.2.13]), PSh(M ) is always compact. However, the stronger notion of being strongly compact is not always satisfied.  On the other hand, if X is a spectral space or coherent space 1 (in the terminology of Hochster [21] or Johnstone [25] respectively), having a base of compact open sets stable under finite intersections, then Sh(X) is strongly compact by [25, Proposition C4.1.13 and Corollary C4.1.14]. In particular, Sh(X) is strongly compact if X is a zerodimensional compact Hausdorff space or if X is the Zariski spectrum of a commutative ring. More generally, Johnstone shows in [25, Corollary C4.1.14] that any compact Hausdorff space is strongly compact.
In the case where M is a group, we have the following result, which appears in [25, Example C3.4.1(b)]: Proposition 2.7. For G a group, the topos PSh(G) is strongly compact if and only if G is finitely generated.
We will need the following definitions in our characterisation of the monoids M such that PSh(M ) is strongly compact.
Definition 2.8. Let M be a monoid, and let S ⊆ M be a subset. We say that S is right-factorable if whenever x ∈ S and y ∈ M with xy ∈ S, we have y ∈ S. Dually, we may call a subset S ⊆ M left-factorable if whenever x ∈ M and y ∈ S with xy ∈ S, we have x ∈ S.
The above definitions are related to the two-out-of-three property in category theory, in the sense that if we view M as a category with one object, then a submonoid of M has the two-out-of-three property precisely if it is both right-factorable and leftfactorable. If M is a commutative, cancellative monoid, then a submonoid S ⊆ M is right-factorable (or equivalently, left-factorable) if and only if S is a saturated monoid in the sense of Geroldinger and Halter-Koch [16], i.e. S = q(S) ∩ M , where q(S) denotes the groupification of S.
If (M i ) i is a family of right-factorable subsets of M , then the intersection i M i is also right-factorable (and similarly for families of left-factorable subsets). So we can define the following: Definition 2.9 (See also [27,Section 2]). Let M be a monoid, and S ⊆ M a nonempty subset. As is standard, we write S M for the submonoid of M generated by S. We define S M to be the smallest right-factorable subset of M that contains S, and call this the right-factorable submonoid generated by S; the extra bracket on the right is intended to evoke the asymmetric extra property this submonoid satisfies compared with S M . We say that S right-factorably generates M if S M = M . We call M right-factorably finitely generated if there is a finite subset S ⊆ M such that S right-factorably generates M . Dually, we can define S M to be the left-factorable submonoid generated by S, i.e. the smallest left-factorable submonoid containing S.
The properties of being right-factorable and right-factorably finitely generated appear in the semigroup literature under the name left unitary and left unitarily finitely generated see e.g. [22, p.63], [26,Definition 4.38]. We prefer to employ terms which convey the elementary notion in terms of elements of the monoid, viewed as morphisms.
The submonoid right-factorably generated by any subset can be computed inductively; a functionally identical construction is given by Kobayashi Given that S i−1 ⊆ S M , to be closed under composition, S M must certainly contain S i−1 M . It follows from the definition of S i that any right-factorable subset containing S i−1 must contain S i , as claimed.
Conversely, i∈N S i is right-factorable: given x, y in the union, they are both contained in some S i for some sufficiently large index i, and hence xy ∈ S i+1 ⊆ i∈N S i . Similarly, given t ∈ S i , m ∈ M , with tm ∈ i∈N S i , we have tm ∈ S j for some j ≥ i, and hence m ∈ S j+1 . Thus we are done.
Remark 2.11. If S 0 is a subset, or more particularly a submonoid, satisfying the left Ore condition (the dual of Definition 2.30 below), we find that S 2 = S 1 : for m ∈ S 2 we have t = t 1 · · · t k and s = s 1 · · · s l in S 1 M such that tm = s and moreover x 1 , . . . , x k , y 1 , . . . , y l in S 0 with x i t i and y j s j in S 0 M for each i and j. The left Ore condition allows us to inductively construct from these an element z ∈ S 0 such that zs and zt are both members of S 0 M , whence m ∈ S 1 . Thus the construction described in Lemma 2.10 terminates after a single step.
Lemma 2.12. Let S ⊆ M be a non-empty subset and let ∼ S be the right congruence generated by the relations x ∼ 1 for x ∈ S. Then: Proof. ⊆. It is enough to show that {m ∈ M : m ∼ S 1} is a right-factorable submonoid. If m ∼ S 1 and m ′ ∼ S 1 then mm ′ ∼ S m ′ , and by transitivity mm ′ ∼ S 1. Further, if m ∼ S 1 and mm ′ ∼ S 1 then mm ′ ∼ S m ′ so it follows that m ′ ∼ S 1.
⊇. Take m ∈ M . If m ∼ S 1 then there must be some one-step relation of the form Both cases lead to a contradiction.
If Γ preserves filtered colimits, then in particular β is an isomorphism. By surjectivity of β, M/ ∼ S has a fixed point for some finite subset S of M , we will denote it by [a] for some representative a ∈ M . Its projection in M/∼ S ′ is again a fixpoint for is a bijection. Injectivity is immediate from filteredness, so we prove surjectivity. Take an element x in Γ(lim − →i S i ). Let x be represented by an element x i ∈ S i . For each s ∈ S, we can find an index j and a structure morphism φ ji : S i → S j such that φ ji (xs) = φ ji (x). Since S is finite we can find a common index k such that φ ki (xs) = φ ki (x) for all s ∈ S. Since φ ki (x) is fixed by all s ∈ S, it is also fixed by all elements of S M = M : indeed, employing the inductive construction of Lemma 2.10, if x is fixed by S i , then it is fixed by S i M , and given m ∈ M , t ∈ S i M with tm ∈ S i M , we have xm = xtm = x, so x is fixed by S i+1 , and hence inductively by i∈N S i = M . So x is represented by an element of Γ(S k ).
The (dual of the) equivalence (2 ⇔ 3) appears in the semigroup theory work of Dandan, Gould, Quinn-Gregson and Zenab [14, Theorem 3.10], amongst some other equivalent conditions. Example 2.14. If M has a right-absorbing element r in the sense of Definition 2.19 then M is right-factorably generated by {r} (since r·m = r for all m ∈ M ). In particular M is right-factorably finitely generated, so PSh(M ) is strongly compact. Given a nonempty set S, the monoid M = End(S) of (total) functions S → S has a right-absorbing element for each element s ∈ S given by the constant function at s, so M is rightfactorably finitely generated by the above.
Example 2.15. We already saw that for a group G, the topos PSh(G) is strongly compact if and only if G is finitely generated. We can use this to produce some more examples of monoids M such that PSh(M ) is not strongly compact. Let G be a group and let M ⊆ G be a submonoid such that Note that M G = G. Now if S ⊆ M is a finite set right-factorably generating M , then S G contains M and is closed under right factors in G, so S G = G. It follows that G is finitely generated. Therefore, for the following monoids M the topos PSh(M ) is not strongly compact: • The monoid N × of nonzero natural numbers under multiplication; • The monoid R − {0} for R an infinite commutative ring without zero-divisors (noting that finitely generated fields are finite); • The monoid of non-singular n × n matrices over R, for R an infinite commutative ring without zero divisors.
The topos PSh(N × ) is (the underlying topos of) the Arithmetic Site by Connes and Consani [12]. It follows that this topos is not strongly compact. In [13], the monoid is considered as well, and in this case the topos PSh(N × 0 ) is strongly compact, by Example 2.14.
Note that the equivalence (1 ⇔ 2) in Theorem 2.13 directly generalises to geometric morphisms f : PSh(M ) → PSh(N ) induced by a tensor-hom adjunction as in Proposition 1.8. So we have the following equivalence:

Right absorbing elements and Localness
The properties that we explore in this subsection are derived from the concept of localness.
Definition 2.17 (see [25, C3.6]). A Grothendieck topos is called local if its global sections functor has a right adjoint. More generally, a geometric morphism f : F → E is local if its direct image functor f * has an E-indexed right adjoint.
To get some geometrical intuition for this concept, we mention the following criterion for localness for the topos of sheaves on a topological space. . Let X be a sober topological space. Then the following are equivalent: 1. X has a focal point, i.e. a point such that the only open set containing it is X itself; being sober makes such a point unique if it exists.

Sh(X) is a local topos.
In particular, if R is a commutative ring then the topos of sheaves on Spec(R) (with the Zariski topology) is a local topos if and only if R has a unique maximal ideal, or in other words if and only if R is a local ring.
19. An element m of a monoid M is called right absorbing if it absorbs anything on its right, so mn = m for all elements n ∈ M ; left absorbing elements are defined dually. An element which is both left and right absorbing is called a zero element, because the 0 of a commutative ring has this property in the ring's multiplicative monoid. This final case is of the broadest interest, but since left and right absorbing elements manifest themselves very differently in PSh(M ), we study them independently. Note that if a monoid has both left absorbing element l and a right absorbing element r, then l = r is a zero element (which is automatically unique).
This convention of handedness of absorbing elements is somewhat arbitrary, since one could alternatively take 'right absorbing' to mean 'absorbs all elements when multiplied on the right'. Both conventions appear in semigroup and semiring literature; we follow [18].
A result allowing us to compare Γ and C which we have not yet had cause to introduce is the following, appearing in a more general form in Johnstone's work, [24, Corollary 2.2(a)]: Lemma 2.20. Let f : F → E be a connected essential geometric morphism, so the unit η of (f * ⊣ f * ) and the counit δ of (f ! ⊣ f * ) are isomorphisms. Write ǫ for the counit of the former and ν for the unit of the latter adjunction. Then there is a canonical comparison natural transformation α : f * → f ! which can be expressed as either A more concrete description of this transformation α : Γ → C for PSh(M ) is that it sends a fixed point of a right M -set X to the connected component of X containing it.
From the same paper, we obtain the following term. In [28], Lawvere and Menni call a geometric morphism pre-cohesive if it is local, hyperconnected and essential, such that f ! preserves finite products; it was shown in [24] that the global sections geometric morphism of a Grothendieck topos satisfies these properties if and only if it is punctually locally connected.
Remark 2.22. Unlike many of the other properties in this paper, punctual local connectedness is not a geometric property: as shown in [24, Proposition 1.6], it forces a connected, locally connected geometric morphism to be hyperconnected, which means that the only sober space X with Sh(X) punctually locally connected is the one-point space.
Lemma 2.23. Suppose M is a monoid with a right absorbing element r. Then for any right M -set A, we have Γ(A) = Ar.
Proof. Clearly any element of A of the form ar with r ∈ R is fixed by the action of M . Conversely, if a is fixed by the action of M then ar = a for any r ∈ R. Thus every fixed point is in Ar. (2 ⇒ 4) Since this geometric morphism is hyperconnected and locally connected, it is punctually locally connected if (and only if) Γ preserves epimorphisms, by [24, Lemma 3.1(ii)]. Alternatively, for X a right M -set, observe that the unit X → ∆C(X) is epic. If Γ preserves epimorphisms, then in particular Γ(X) → Γ∆C(X) ∼ = C(X) is an epimorphism.
(4 ⇔ 5) * By the axiom of choice, any epimorphism in Set (in particular any component of α) splits. Given a function g : C(X) → C(Y ), we therefore obtain a morphism X → Y lifting g by sending every x ∈ X to the fixed point α −1 is the connected component of X containing x, so C is full. Conversely, by standard adjunction arguments, C is full if and only if the unit ν of the adjunction (C ⊣ ∆) is componentwise a split epimorphism. C being full therefore makes each component of ν, and hence of Γν and α = (η C ) −1 • Γν a split epimorphism.
(4 ⇒ 6) Since C reflects the initial object by inspection, α : Γ → C being an epimorphism ensures that Γ(X) is non-empty whenever C(X) is. As the proof suggests, several of the conditions are shown to be general consequences of one another in [24].
Remark 2.25. In the above theorem, we could replace (3) with the statement Γ preserves pushouts, or coequalizers, or reflexive coequalizers. Indeed, because 1 is indecomposable, Γ = Hom M (1, −) preserves coproducts, so if it preserves pushouts then it also preserves coequalizers (in particular reflexive coequalizers). Conversely, any epimorphism can be written as a reflexive coequalizer, so if Γ preserves reflexive coequalizers then it preserves epimorphisms as well.

The Right Ore Condition, Preservation of Monomorphisms and de Morgan Toposes
We can view the preceding sections as investigations of 'projectivity' properties of the terminal right M -set, which generally corresponded to properties of Γ. We move on in this section to the examination of the 'flatness' properties of terminal right M -set, corresponding to properties of C. The first and weakest of these is monomorphismflatness of the terminal left M -set; one equivalent property to this is the dual of one from the last section: Definition 2.26. Dualising Definition 2.21, we say a connected, locally connected geometric morphism f is copunctually locally connected if the natural transformation α of Lemma 2.20 is a monomorphism. A Grothendieck topos is called copunctually locally connected if the global sections geometric morphism is copunctually locally connected, which can be interpreted in the case of PSh(M ) as 'every component has at most one fixed point'.
Example 2.27. Like punctual local connectedness, copunctual local connectedness is not a geometric property. Suppose X is a connected, locally connected sober space. Consider the global sections geometric morphism f : Sh(X) → Set. Viewing the objects of Sh(X) as local homeomorphisms, the map α E : f * (E) → f ! (E) sends each global section s to the unique connected component of E that contains the image s(X). If X has an open subset U not equal to the empty set or all of X, we can construct a local homeomorphism π : E → X by taking E to be the quotient of the disjoint union of two copies of X which identifies the two copies of U , and take π to be the natural projection map. This E is connected since X is, but has exactly 2 global sections, so α E fails to be monic. Thus Sh(X) is colocally punctually connected if and only if X is the one point space.
Another equivalent property relates to the internal logic of PSh(M ). The name 'extremally disconnected' is a bit misleading, since the existence of a dense point in X (see Proposition 2.46 below) makes X both connected and extremally disconnected. An explanation for this confusion is that extremal disconnectedness was originally only defined by Gleason for Hausdorff spaces in [17]. In that situation, extremal disconnectedness is strictly stronger than total disconnectedness. More generally, if X = i∈I X i is a disjoint union of a family {X i } i∈I of irreducible topological spaces in the sense to be defined in Proposition 2.46, then it follows that X is extremally disconnected. If X is a variety (with the Zariski topology), then X is extremally disconnected if and only if each of its connected components is irreducible.  Proof. (1 ⇒ 2) Let A be indecomposable and let A 1 , A 2 ⊆ A be two non-empty sub-M -sets of A. Since C(A 1 ∪ A 2 ) ֒→ C(A) = 1 (and the first expression has at least one element), the two subsets must intersect.

Definition 2.28. A topos E is said to be de Morgan if its subobject classifier is de Morgan as an internal Heyting algebra. Equivalently, this says that for any subobject
(2 ⇒ 3) Applying (2) to the principal M -sets generated by elements m 1 , m 2 ∈ M gives the right Ore condition.
(3 ⇔ 4) Informally, given a finite zigzag connecting elements a 1 , a 2 in an indecomposable right M -set A, the right Ore condition allows us to inductively 'push out' the spans of this zigzag to obtain elements m 1 , m 2 with a 1 · m 1 = a 2 · m 2 , so any sub-M -set containing a 1 intersects any containing a 2 ; it follows that any non-empty sub-M -set is indecomposable. Conversely, the union of a pair of principal ideals in M being indecomposable means they must intersect, else we could not construct a connecting zigzag.
(4 ⇒ 1) A subobject of an M -set A is a coproduct of subobjects of the indecomposable components of A. In particular, (4) ensures that the image under C of an inclusion of sub-M -sets is monic. (1 ⇒ 7) Since the counit of a hyperconnected geometric morphism is monic [25, Proposition A4.6.6], we have α X = Cǫ X • δ Γ(X) −1 is monic when C preserves monomorphisms.
Generate a right congruence of M from the relations m 1 n ∼ m 1 n ′ and m 2 n ∼ m 2 n ′ for all n, n ′ ∈ M . The quotient of M by this congruence is indecomposable, so has at most one fixed point since α is monic; in particular, the equivalence classes represented by m 1 and m 2 are fixed and so must be equal. That is, The equivalences (1 ⇔ 3) and a partial form of (3 ⇔ 4) appear respectively as [26, Exercise 12.2(2) and Exercise 11.2(2)].
Remark 2.32. Following [28], an object X of a topos E is called contractible if X A is connected for all objects A of E. Lawvere and Menni say a pre-cohesive topos is sufficiently cohesive if every object can be embedded in a contractible object. Equivalently, a pre-cohesive topos is sufficiently cohesive if and only if the subobject classifier is connected, see [29,Proposition 4]. As we observed in the proof of (3 ⇔ 5) above, the subobject classifier of PSh(M ) is connected if and only if M does not satisfy the right Ore condition. It follows easily that PSh(M ) is sufficiently cohesive if and only if M has at leas two right-absorbing elements.
Since any group satisfies the right Ore condition, the equivalent properties of Theorem 2.31 are satisfied when M is a group; we shall see further special cases while investigating stronger properties in subsequent sections. Since every monomorphism in a topos is regular, C preserving equalizers implies C preserves monomorphisms. However, preserving equalizers is a strictly stronger condition: Example 2.33 (C can preserve monomorphisms but not equalizers). Consider the commutative monoid M = N of natural numbers under addition. Clearly, N satisfies the right Ore condition, so PSh(N) is de Morgan. We prove that the functor C does not preserve equalizers in this case. Consider the diagram of right N-sets with s the successor map, i.e. s(n) = n + 1. Then the equalizer of this diagram is empty. But applying the connected components functor to (11) gives with C(id) and C(s) both the identity map. So the equalizer of this diagram is { * }, which does not agree with C(∅) = ∅.
We shall see in Theorem 2.48 the extent to which preservation of equalizers is stronger than preservation of monomorphisms for C. We first examine the conditions under which C preserves finite products.

Spans and Strong Connectedness
Definition 2.34. A geometric morphism f : F → E is called strongly connected if it is locally connected and its left adjoint f ! preserves finite products.
If f is strongly connected, then in particular f ! (1) = 1, so f is connected. This means that f is strongly connected if and only if it is connected, locally connected, such that f ! preserves binary products.
One justification for this name is a geometric one, but as we shall see in Proposition 2.46, it coincides with a stronger property, called total connectedness, for toposes of the form Sh(X). Therefore we give some justification in terms of presheaf toposes in Example 2.35.
Let D be a small category. Recall that colimits of shape D commute with finite products in Set if and only if D is a sifted category; we refer the reader to the survey on sifted colimits [3] for background on these. Concretely, siftedness may be expressed as the requirement that for each pair of objects D 1 , D 2 in D, the category Cospan(D 1 , D 2 ) of cospans on this pair of objects is non-empty and connected. More abstractly, siftedness may be characterised by the diagonal functor D → D × D being a final functor. Applying this to the case where D has just one object, we arrive at the following: Proof. The equivalence of (1), (2), (3) and (4) is immediate from the preceding discussion.

Preserving Exponentials
In the context of PSh(M ) being a strongly connected topos, it makes sense to ask under which extra conditions C is cartesian-closed; we explore this and some related conditions now for the sake of curiosity. First, we recall from (4)  For a general geometric morphism f : F → E to be locally connected, the inverse image functor not only needs a left adjoint f ! , but this adjoint must be E-indexed, which can be paraphrased as the condition that transposition from F to E across the adjunction (f ! ⊣ f * ) should preserve pullback squares of a suitable form. We refer the reader to [7, Definition 1.2.1] for a more precise statement of this, but we will only use the following fact. Fact 2.39. Let f : F → E be a connected, locally connected geometric morphism. Then for every Y in F, X in E we have: naturally in X and Y . Thus even when f is not strongly connected, we can construct the canonical morphisms are well-defined. When they are isomorphisms for every n, we say f is finitely power-connected. Now suppose f is a connected, locally connected geometric morphism. Then we say f ! preserves E-indexed powers, or that f is power-connected if ϑ f * (X),Y is an isomorphism for all objects X ∈ E and Y ∈ F. Since f * ( i∈I 1) ∼ = i∈I 1 in F, this implies finite power-connectedness.
Finally, suppose f is strongly connected. We say f is cartesian-closed-connected 2 if f ! is cartesian-closed. By inspection, this implies being power-connected.
The first of these definitions is clearly implied by strong connectedness, since powers correspond to products in which all entries are equal. For the global sections morphisms of the toposes studied in this paper, however, it is equally strong: For our investigation of power-connectedness, we begin with the case where M fails to satisfy the right Ore condition. In [37,Proposition 3.4] it is noted that a further condition coinciding with the right Ore condition is the property that every indecomposable M -set has finite width, in the sense that there exists an upper bound on the length of the zigzag needed to connect any pair of elements. This is formalised as follows: Definition 2.42 ([37, Section 1]). Let M be a monoid and A a right M -set. We say that two elements a, b ∈ A can be connected by a scheme of length n if we can find s 1 , . . . , s n , t 1 , . . . , t n ∈ M , a 1 , . . . , a n ∈ A such that a = a 1 s 1 , a 1 t 1 = a 2 s 2 , . . . , a n−1 t n = a n s n , a n t n = b. Proposition 2.43. Suppose that M does not satisfy the right Ore condition. Then the connected components functor C fails to preserve Set-indexed powers; in particular, C is not cartesian-closed.
Proof. We shall construct an indecomposable right M -set X such that X ∆(N) is not indecomposable.
Since M does not satisfy the right Ore condition, there is some pair of elements a, b with aM ∩ bM = ∅. Construct the M -set S by quotienting by the equivalence relation m ∼ m ′ iff m = m ′ or m, m ′ ∈ aM or m, m ′ ∈ bM . The quotient map M ։ S sends the ideals aM and bM to distinct fixed points of S; abusing notation we call these fixed points a and b respectively. Now let X be the quotient of n∈N S by the equivalence relation identifying the element b of the nth copy of S with the element a of the (n + 1)th copy of S. Denoting the image of a from the nth copy by a n , we observe that for and k ∈ N, a 0 and a k ∈ X cannot be connected by a scheme of length less than k.
Elements of X ∆(N) can be identified with N-indexed tuples of elements of X, which we notate as vectors. Take two elements x, y ∈ X ∆(N) . If x and y can be connected by a scheme of length 1, then this means that there is some z ∈ X ∆(N) and elements s, t ∈ M such that x = zs and y = zt. In particular, for each index n we have x n = z n s and y n = z n t so these are connected by a scheme of length 1 in X. Analogously, if x and y can be connected by a scheme of length k, then x n and y n can be connected by a scheme of length k in X for all indices n ∈ N.
Now let x n = a n and y n = a 0 for all n ∈ N. The resulting elements x and y are in separate components of X ∆(N) , since for any k ∈ N, an element z connected to y by a scheme of length less than k cannot have kth component equal to a k . Thus X ∆(N) is not indecomposable, as claimed.
For the case where M satisfies the right Ore condition and PSh(M ) is powerconnected, we have Theorem 2.56.9 below. Finally, we examine the still stronger condition of cartesian-closed-connectedness. But since M has the right Ore condition, they are in the same component if and only if there are m 1 , m 2 with π 1 · m 1 = π 2 · m 2 . By inspection of the action, π 2 · m 2 = π 2 for all m 2 ∈ M , while π 1 · m 1 is independent of the second argument for any m 1 ∈ M , so the same must also be true of π 2 , which forces M to be trivial.

Right Collapsibility and Total Connectedness
We can express localness of a connected geometric morphism f (Definition 2.17) as the existence of a right adjoint to f in the 2-category of Grothendieck toposes and geometric morphisms; see [25,Theorem C3.6.1]. From this perspective, the dual property to localness, appearing in [25, Theorem C3.6.14], is total connectedness. Proposition 2.46. Let X be a sober topological space. Then the following are equivalent: 1. Sh(X) is totally connected. 2. Sh(X) is strongly connected. 3. Sh(X) is finitely power-connected. 4. Any non-empty open subset of X is connected and a finite intersection of these is nonempty. 5. X is irreducible: if X = X 1 ∪ X 2 for closed subsets X 1 and X 2 , then X 1 = X or X 2 = X. 6. X has a dense point, i.e. a point that is contained in all non-empty open sets.
(3 ⇒ 4) Let X be a connected, locally connected topological space such that Sh(X) is finitely power-connected with global sections geometric morphism f : Sh(X) → Set. For two open subsets U and V , their product as subterminal objects in Sh(X) is given by the intersection U ∩ V . Since f ! preserves finite powers, we know that the natural map f ! (U ) → f ! (U ) × f ! (U ) coincides with the diagonal and is an isomorphism, which shows that U is connected whenever it is non-empty (since U has at least one connected component). Moreover, for non-empty U, V , if we had U ∩ V empty, U ∪ V would be a disconnected open set, a contradiction.
(4 ⇔ 5) Given closed subsets X 1 , X 2 ⊂ X with X 1 ∪X 2 = X, we have (X −X 1 )∩(X − X 2 ) = ∅. Given that intersections of non-empty open sets are non-empty, this means that one of (X − X 1 ) or (X − X 2 ) must be empty. Hence X is irreducible. Conversely, given two disjoint open subsets, their complements are closed and cover X, so one of them must be empty.
(4 ⇒ 6) Condition (4) ensures that the non-empty open sets of X form a completely prime filter, and hence correspond to a point contained in every open set.
(6 ⇒ 1) Having a dense point ensures that X is connected and locally connected. Expressing Sh(X) as the category of local homeomorphisms over X, each connected component of an object E → X must meet the fibre over the dense point in exactly one point. The inverse image functor of (the geometric morphism corresponding to) this point, which gives the set of points of E lying in the fibre over it, is therefore isomorphic to the connected components functor f ! . Being the inverse image functor of a geometric morphism means that f ! preserves finite limits, as required.
For a ring R without non-zero nilpotent elements, Spec(R) is irreducible (for the Zariski topology) if and only if R does not have zero divisors (i.e. R is a domain).
As in the last section, we can express C as sending an M -set to its colimit as a functor. Thus C preserves finite limits if and only if colimits of shape M op commute with finite limits in Set. A well-known result regarding commuting limits and colimits is that colimits of shape D commute with finite limits in a topos if and only if D is filtered, which means concretely that: • D is non-empty, • For any pair of objects P, Q of D, there is a cospan from P to Q.
• For any pair of parallel morphisms f, g : P ⇒ Q there is some h : Q → R in D with hf = hg. We correspondingly say that D op is cofiltered if D satisfies these conditions. Applying this to M as a one-object category as in the last section, we see that the first two conditions are trivial.  Proof. Equivalence of (1), (2) and (3) follows from the discussion above.
(1 ⇒ 4 ⇒ 5) The first implication is trivial, the latter is Proposition 1.10. Remark 2.49. Note that a functor into Set is flat in the sense of Definition 1.7 if and only if its category of elements is filtered in the above sense; since the general definition of the category of elements is rather involved, we mention only in passing that the category of elements for the terminal left M -set is precisely M op , which gives an alternative proof of the equivalence (1 ⇔ 2) in the above.
Remark 2.50. In the above we recovered Sedaghatjoo and Khaksari's result [37,Lemma 3.7], which is the equivalence (1 ⇔ 3). The equivalence (4 ⇔ 5) can also be seen as the statement that the left M -set with one element is pullback-flat if and only if it is equalizer-flat. In the semigroup literature, it is shown more generally that equalizerflatness and pullback-flatness coincide for cyclic M -sets, see Kilp  Proof. If C preserves finite limits, then it certainly also preserves finite products and monomorphisms. Conversely, suppose that C preserves finite products and monomorphisms. To show that C preserves all finite limits, it is enough to show that C preserves equalizers. Let E be the equaliser of the diagram X Y.
f g Since C(E) is a subobject of C(X) and C preserves coproducts, it is enough to show that E is non-empty whenever X and Y are indecomposable. Because C preserves finite products, X ×Y is indecomposable. Therefore, consider the two (non-empty) subobjects Their intersection is isomorphic to E, and is non-empty by part 2 of Theorem 2.31.
Proposition 2.51 enables us to show that when M is a monoid with PSh(M ) strongly connected, C need not preserve all monomorphisms. This demonstrates (for example) that the properties of a topos of being de Morgan and strongly connected are independent.
Example 2.52 (Strongly connected ⇒ de Morgan). Let M = {1, a, b} be the threeelement monoid with a and b right-absorbing. In this case, PSh(M ) is known as the topos of reflexive graphs. This topos also appears in the work of Connes and Consani [11], where the objects of this topos are seen as sets equipped with a certain notion of reflexive relation. It follows from Lemma 2.38 that PSh(M ) is strongly connected. However, aM ∩ bM = ∅ so PSh(M ) is not de Morgan.

Left absorbing elements and Colocalness
Definition 2.53. A more direct dual of Definition 2.17 in the context of essential geometric morphisms is the existence of an 'extra left adjoint'. We say that a locally connected Grothendieck topos E with global sections morphism f is colocal if the left adjoint f ! has a further left adjoint. More generally, we might say a locally connected geometric morphism f : F → E is colocal if its left adjoint f ! has a further E-indexed left adjoint.
There is a characterisation of topological spaces X such that Sh(X) is colocal comparable to Proposition 2.18. Proof. Suppose that X has a dense open point x 0 . From the proof of Proposition 2.46, we know that the connected components functor f ! of Sh(X) coincides with the inverse image functor for the geometric morphism corresponding to x 0 . Moreover, we can construct a left adjoint to f ! which maps a set S to the sheaf F S defined as So Sh(X) is a colocal topos. Conversely, suppose that Sh(X) is a colocal topos. Then the connected components functor preserves arbitrary limits. In particular, it preserves the terminal object and monomorphisms, which shows that each non-empty open subset of X is connected. Now consider the diagram {U i } i∈I of all non-empty open subsets of X. We have C( U ∈O(X) U ) = U ∈O(X) C(U ) = 1, so U ∈O(X) U is a minimal non-empty open subset. Because X is sober, this minimal open subset contains exactly one point.
For a commutative ring R without zero-divisors, we find that the topos of sheaves on Spec(R) (with the Zariski topology) is colocal if and only if there is an f ∈ R such that R[f −1 ] is a field (necessarily the field of fractions of R). In this case, R is called a Goldman domain. If we assume that R is noetherian, then R is a Goldman domain if and only if R has only finitely many prime ideals; see [10,Theorem 12.4]. Proof. Recall that we can express C(A) as the set of equivalence classes of A under the equivalence relation generated by a ∼ a · m for a ∈ A, m ∈ M . Clearly every equivalence class has a representative of the form a · l, so it suffices to show that if a ∼ b then a · l = b · l (so this representative is unique). Indeed, for a ∼ b to hold there must be a finite sequence of elements of A, a = a 0 , a 1 , . . . , a k = b and elements m 0 , . . . , m k−1 and n 1 , . . . , n k with a i · m i = a i+1 · n i+1 for i = 0, . . . , k − 1. Then we have a i · l = a i · m i l = a i+1 · n i+1 l = a i+1 · l and so inductively a · l = b · l, as required.
The above lemma is the dual of Lemma 2.23. We will use it to prove (1 ⇒ 6) in the following theorem. (2 ⇒ 3) Let l be a left-absorbing element. Then the set of left-absorbing elements can be written as lM , in particular it is indecomposable projective as a right M -set. We claim that lM is an initial object in the category of indecomposable right M -sets. Take an indecomposable right M -set X. Note that morphisms lM → X correspond to elements of Xl ∼ = X ⊗ M M l. Because M l = 1 as a left M -set, we have Xl = C(X) = 1, so there is a unique morphism lM → X.
(3 ⇒ 4) Let A be the initial object in the category of indecomposable right M -sets. Then for every indecomposable right M -set X, there is a unique morphism f : A → X.
The image Q of f is necessarily contained in every indecomposable subobject of X, which in turn implies that it is contained in every subobject. Further, the unique morphism π : A → Q is an epimorphism, so for any endomorphism g : Q → Q we have g • π = π, which shows g = 1.
(4 ⇒ 1) Consider the minimal non-empty subobject A of M . For arbitrary m ∈ M , take the morphism f : A → M , a → ma. Then f (A) contains A and f −1 (A) = A by minimality of A. So f defines an endomorphism of A, which is trivial by assumption. This shows that ma = a, for all m ∈ M and all a ∈ A. In other words, each element of A is a left-absorbing element.
(1 ⇔ 5) Recall that the category of essential points can be identified with the category of indecomposable projective left M -sets. If l is a left absorbing element, then the terminal left M -set is projective, since we can write it as 1 = M l. Conversely, if the category of essential points has a terminal object, then 1 is projective, so there is an idempotent e ∈ M such that 1 = M e. But then e is a left absorbing element.
(1 ⇒ 6) By Lemma 2.55, if l is a left-absorbing element of M then C = Hom M (lM, −), so C preserves limits. It follows from the Special Adjoint Functor Theorem that C has a left adjoint c. Using Proposition 1.5, we know that c(X) ∼ = X × lM , whence it preserves connected limits. Note that it preserves products if and only if lM has a single element (so l is a zero element).
(6 ⇒ 7 ⇒ 8 ⇒ 9) These implications are trivial. (9 ⇒ 1) By Proposition 2.43, if PSh(M ) is power-connected, then M must satisfy the right Ore condition. Consider the product of |M | copies of M in PSh(M ). This is indecomposable by assumption, so there are elements s, t ∈ M such that (m) m∈M · s = (1) m∈M · t, which is to say such that ms = t for all m ∈ M . Taking m = 1 we have that s = t is a left-absorbing element, as required.
The equivalence of conditions 1 and 7 appears as Proposition 3.9 of [37]; we underline once again that their 'right zero' elements are our 'left absorbing' elements.
Remark 2.57. Between the preservation of finite products by C in Proposition 2.36 and the preservation of arbitrary products in Theorem 2.56, we can also investigate intermediate sizes of products, which can be equivalently stated as the requirement that colimits over M op commute with such products (see the discussion in Section 2.5). Surprisingly, by [1,Theorem 3.1] for an arbitrary small category D, commuting with even countably infinite products forces commutation with equalizers and hence with all equally large limits. That is, we may as well expand our considerations from products to arbitrary limits. We can also conclude that the equivalence (7 ⇔ 8) in Theorem 2.56 is true in general for presheaf toposes.
We recall some classical terminology. Let κ be a regular cardinal. Then a κ-small category is a category for which the collection of morphisms is a set of cardinality strictly smaller than κ. Further, κ-small limits are limits of diagrams indexed by κsmall categories. For example, and ω-small limits are finite limits, for ω = |N|. We say that a category D is κ-filtered if every diagram F : I → D, with I a κ-small category, has a cone over it; this is equivalent to D-colimits commuting with κ-small limits. Dually, It follows that C preserves κ-small limits if and only if M has the property that for any family {m i } i∈I with |I| < κ, there is an m such that: for all i, j ∈ I. We may call monoids with this property right κ-collapsible.
Suppose that M is right κ-collapsible for some κ > |M |. Then there is some l ∈ M such that ml = m ′ l for all m, m ′ ∈ M , so by taking m ′ = 1 we see that l is left absorbing (see also the proof of Theorem 2.56). However, it is possible that M is |M |-collapsible but does not have a left-absorbing element. We can construct examples as follows. Let κ be a regular cardinal. Then we can identify κ with the set of ordinals of cardinality strictly smaller than κ. The union of two ordinals in κ is still in κ, so the union defines a (commutative idempotent) monoid structure on κ. Now let {α i } i∈I be a family of ordinals in κ, with |I| < κ. Then the union α = i∈I α i is again in κ, because κ is regular. Clearly, α i ∪ α = α ∪ α j for all i, j ∈ I. So this monoid is right κ-collapsible, but it does not have a left absorbing element.

Zero Elements
Definition 2.58. Let f : F → E be a connected, locally connected geometric morphism. We say f is bilocal if it is both local and colocal. We say f is bipunctually locally connected if it is both punctually and copunctually locally connected. As usual, we say a Grothendieck topos has these properties if its global sections morphism does.
In [29, Definitions 1 and 2], Lawvere introduced the terms of quality type and category of cohesion over a base category. For Grothendieck toposes over Set, these respectively coincide with the bipunctual local connectedness presented above and condition 6 of Theorem 2.59 below, so that in the case of toposes of the form PSh(M ) they coincide.
right collapsible by Proposition 2.51 and Theorem 2.48. Applying right collapsibility to any pair of right absorbing elements shows that they must be equal, so there is a unique right absorbing element, which is thus a zero element.
(5 ⇔ 8) One direction follows from the fact that ∆ preserves 1. Conversely, any left adjoint functor whose domain is Set is determined by the image of 1. In particular, if the left adjoint of C preserves 1 it is naturally isomorphic to ∆, and hence their right adjoints are naturally isomorphic too, so ∆ is also a right adjoint to Γ.
Note that (4 ⇔ 7) appears in a more general form as [24,Proposition 3.7]. Observe also that Γ being full implies that C is full, but now in an entirely constructive way! Remark 2.60. Since any monoid with a right-absorbing element has either exactly one, which is necessarily a zero element, or at least two, we have a dichotomy between Lawvere's sufficiently cohesive toposes from Remark 2.32 above and their toposes of quality type. This dichotomy is shown by Menni in [33,Corollary 4.6] to hold for arbitrary pre-cohesive presheaf toposes.

Trivialising Conditions
Many of the conditions encountered in this article suggest lines of investigation for further properties. As it turns out, many of these directions turn out to be dead ends, in the sense that they force the monoid to be trivial. In this section we present a variety of these conditions. As promised in an earlier section, we include some alternative weakenings of the concept of cartesian-closedness in this list.
Definition 2.61. Suppose F : F → E is a functor between toposes which preserves products. F is sub-cartesian-closed if the comparison morphisms ϑ P,Q of (6) in Section 1.1 are monomorphisms for every pair P, Q of objects of F. If F moreover preserves monomorphisms and the comparison morphism χ of (8) is a monomorphism, we say F is sublogical.
Sublogical functors appear in the definition of open geometric morphisms: a geometric morphism is called open if its inverse image functor is sub-cartesian-closed. We therefore refer the reader once again to Johnstone [  6. C is full and faithful. 7. C is faithful. 8. Γ is cartesian-closed or logical. 9. Γ is sub-cartesian-closed or sub-logical. 10. ∆ is logical and C preserves products. 11. C is logical, cartesian-closed, sub-logical or sub-cartesian-closed. 12. Γ reflects binary coproducts or binary products or the terminal object or monomorphisms. Proof.
(1 ⇔ 2) This is immediate after noting that the trivial monoid is the only monoid which can represent Set as a presheaf topos.
Since any equivalence is an inclusion and Γ is faithful if and only if the counit of (∆ ⊣ Γ) is epic, which is sufficient to make the geometric morphism localic. But a geometric morphism which is hyperconnected and localic is automatically an equivalence.
(2 ⇒ 6 ⇒ 7 ⇒ 5) The components of an equivalence are always full and faithful. The second implication is trivial, and C is faithful if and only if the unit of (C ⊣ ∆) is a monomorphism, which is again sufficient to make the geometric morphism localic.
(3 ⇔ 8 ⇒ 9 ⇔ 3) Since Γ : PSh(M ) → Set always preserves the subobject classifier by [25, Proposition A4.6.6(v)], it is logical if and only if it is cartesian-closed, and the latter is equivalent to the global sections morphism being full and faithful by Lemma A4.2.9 there. Being sub-logical (or equivalently sub-cartesian-closed) is an apparently weaker condition, but is still equivalent to the geometric morphism being an inclusion by [25,Proposition C3.1.8].
(1 ⇔ 10) This is the content of Example 2.37.
(2 ⇒ 11 ⇒ 1) The components of an equivalence are always logical. Conversely, we observed in the proof of Theorem 2.31 that C(Ω) always has one or two elements, so that the comparison morphism χ for C is always monic. Being sublogical is therefore equivalent to being sub-cartesian-closed. The remaining implication is contained in the proofs of Propositions 2.43 and 2.44, since in both cases we actually showed that one of the comparison morphisms failed to be monic.

Conclusion
We can summarise some of the properties and results obtained in this paper in Table 1 and Table 2.

Notable Omissions
This article is far from an exhaustive presentation of what topos-theoretic properties mean for toposes of the form PSh(M ) and the monoids presenting them: we have chosen to focus on those properties expressible in terms of the functors constituting the global sections geometric morphism. Other properties which the authors are already investigating include: • Classifying topos properties: When is PSh(M ) the classifying topos of a regular or coherent theory? More generally, what properties of theories classified by PSh(M ) and their categories of models can be deduced from properties of M and vice versa? • Diagonal properties: Since the (2-)category of toposes and geometric morphisms has pullbacks, any geometric morphism F → E induces a diagonal F → F × E F. We may in particular apply this to the global sections morphism, to express properties such as separatedness of a topos (cf. [25, Definition C3.2.12(b)]). However, a more detailed understanding of geometric morphisms between toposes of the form PSh(M ) is needed to analyse these. • Relative properties: Some properties of (Grothendieck) toposes are most succinctly expressed by the existence of geometric morphisms of a particular type to or from toposes with certain properties (see below for an example). • Categorical properties: There are some categorical properties of Grothendieck toposes that ostensibly aren't expressible in terms of the global sections morphism in a straightforward way, although they might be expressible in the relative sense above. These include every object having a certain property, or there being 'enough' (a separating set of) objects with a particular property. Each of these classes merits a systematic study in its own right. We briefly mention illustrative examples of the latter two classes of properties, corresponding to more elementary and well-studied properties of monoids.
We say that a Grothendieck topos E is anétendue if there is an object X of E such that the slice topos E/X is localic, i.e. such that E/X is equivalent to the category of sheaves on a locale. This can alternatively be stated as the existence of an atomic geometric morphism to E from a localic topos. By [ An object A of a topos is called decidable if the diagonal subobject A ֒→ A × A has a complement. In particular, if A is a right M -set, then A is decidable if for two distinct elements a, b ∈ A we have a · m = b · m for all m ∈ M . Subobjects of decidable objects are again decidable. We say a topos is locally decidable if every object is a quotient of a decidable object. By [25,Remark C5.4.3], PSh(M ) is locally decidable if and only if PSh(M op ) is anétendue. So PSh(M ) is locally decidable if and only if for all a, b, m ∈ M , the equality am = bm implies that a = b, which is to say that M is right cancellative, dually to the above.
In the other direction, there are some notable elementary properties of monoids which we have not yet found a topos-theoretic equivalent for. The most basic is the left Ore condition, dual to Definition 2.30; of course, we could simply examine the category of left actions of our monoid, and dualize the results presented in this paper, but believe it will be more informative to seek a condition intrinsic to the topos of right actions, given the variety of equivalent conditions we reached in Theorem 2.31.
The internal logic of a topos is embodied in the structure of its subobject classifier.
As we have seen, in PSh(M ) this is determined by the structure of the right ideals of M , but we have only tackled the most basic cases in which PSh(M ) is a Boolean or de Morgan topos. There are therefore a wide array of algebraic or logical properties of the lattice of right ideals that demand further investigation.

Relativisation and Generalisation
In [35], an equivalence was demonstrated between the 2-category of monoids, semigroup homomorphisms and 'conjugations' and the 2-category of their presheaf toposes, essential geometric morphisms between these and geometric transformations. This means that we can just as systematically explore how properties of semigroup or monoid homomorphisms are reflected as properties of essential geometric morphisms between toposes of the form PSh(M ). This is a direct extension of the work we have done in this article, since the unique homomorphism M → 1 corresponds under this equivalence to the global sections morphism of PSh(M ). More generally, we will be able to use the tensor-hom expressions described in Section 1 for adjunctions between these toposes to give an algebraic interpretation of not-necessarily-essential geometric morphisms, as we did in Corollary 2.16. Since such tensor-hom expressions exist for geometric morphisms between presheaf toposes more generally (see [31,Section VII.2]), toposes of monoid actions may provide a good context from which to build an algebraic analysis of geometric morphisms. One direction that the authors are yet to work on is relativisation. Amongst internal categories in arbitrary toposes, monoids are naturally defined as those whose object of objects is the terminal object. Accordingly, one might be interested in examining toposes of internal right actions of internal monoids relative to a topos other than Set. While many of the results we obtain in this article were arrived at constructively or are expressed in a way that relativises directly, there are some which cannot be transferred directly into an arbitrary topos. For instance, our inductive construction of the submonoid right-factorably generated by S in Lemma 2.10 requires the presence of a natural number object, while the application of Proposition 2.43 in Theorem 2.56 relies on the law of excluded middle. More significantly, the proof that condition 4 implies condition 5 in Theorem 2.24 explicitly relies on a form of the axiom of choice. This investigation will therefore be non-trivial, and it will be interesting to discover the relative analogues of the results presented here.