Closure operator

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In mathematics, a closure operator on a set S is a function cl : P(S) P(S) from the power set of S to itself
which satises the following conditions for all sets X, Y S

Closure operators are determined by their closed sets, i.e., by the sets of the form cl(X), since the closure cl(X) of a
set X is the smallest closed set containing X. Such families of closed sets are sometimes called "Moore families",
in honor of E. H. Moore who studied closure operators in his 1910 Introduction to a form of general analysis, whereas
the concept of the closure of a subset originated in the work of Frigyes Riesz in connection with topological spaces.[1]
Closure operators are also called "hull operators", which prevents confusion with the closure operators studied in
topology. A set together with a closure operator on it is sometimes called a closure system.

1 Applications
Closure operators have many applications:
In topology, the closure operators are topological closure operators, which must satisfy

cl(X1 Xn ) = cl(X1 ) cl(Xn )

for all n N (Note that for n = 0 this gives cl() = ).

In algebra and logic, many closure operators are nitary closure operators, i.e. they satisfy

cl(X) = {cl(Y ) : Y X and Y nite } .

In universal logic, closure operators are also known as consequence operators.

In the theory of partially ordered sets, which are important in theoretical computer science, closure operators have
an alternative denition.

2 Closure operators in topology

Main article: Kuratowski closure axioms

The topological closure of a subset X of a topological space consists of all points y of the space, such that every
neighbourhood of y contains a point of X. The function that associates to every subset X its closure is a topological
closure operator. Conversely, every topological closure operator on a set gives rise to a topological space whose closed
sets are exactly the closed sets with respect to the closure operator.
For topological closure operators the second closure axiom (being increasing) is redundant.

1
2 5 CLOSED SETS

3 Closure operators in algebra

Finitary closure operators play a relatively prominent role in universal algebra, and in this context they are tradition-
ally called algebraic closure operators. Every subset of an algebra generates a subalgebra: the smallest subalgebra
containing the set. This gives rise to a nitary closure operator.
Perhaps the best known example for this is the function that associates to every subset of a given vector space its
linear span. Similarly, the function that associates to every subset of a given group the subgroup generated by it, and
similarly for elds and all other types of algebraic structures.
The linear span in a vector space and the similar algebraic closure in a eld both satisfy the exchange property: If
x is in the closure of the union of A and {y} but not in the closure of A, then y is in the closure of the union of A
and {x}. A nitary closure operator with this property is called a matroid. The dimension of a vector space, or the
transcendence degree of a eld (over its prime eld) is exactly the rank of the corresponding matroid.
The function that maps every subset of a given eld to its algebraic closure is also a nitary closure operator, and
in general it is dierent from the operator mentioned before. Finitary closure operators that generalize these two
operators are studied in model theory as dcl (for denable closure) and acl (for algebraic closure).
The convex hull in n-dimensional Euclidean space is another example of a nitary closure operator. It satises the
anti-exchange property: If x is not contained in the union of A and {y}, but in its closure, then y is not contained in
the closure of the union of A and {x}. Finitary closure operators with this property give rise to antimatroids.

4 Closure operators in logic

Suppose you have some logical formalism that contains certain rules allowing you to derive new formulas from given
ones. Consider the set F of all possible formulas, and let P be the power set of F, ordered by . For a set X of
formulas, let cl(X) be the set of all formulas that can be derived from X. Then cl is a closure operator on P. More
precisely, we can obtain cl as follows. Call continuous an operator J such that, for every directed class T,

J(lim T)= lim J(T).

This continuity condition is on the basis of a xed point theorem for J. Consider the one-step operator J of a monotone
logic. This is the operator associating any set X of formulas with the set J(X) of formulas which are either logical
axioms or are obtained by an inference rule from formulas in X or are in X. Then such an operator is continuous and
we can dene cl(X) as the least xed point for J greater or equal to X. In accordance with such a point of view, Tarski,
Brown, Suszko and other authors proposed a general approach to logic based on closure operator theory. Also, such
an idea is proposed in programming logic (see Lloyd 1987) and in fuzzy logic (see Gerla 2000).

4.1 Consequence operators

Around 1930, Alfred Tarski developed an abstract theory of logical deductions which models some properties of
logical calculi. Mathematically, what he described is just a nitary closure operator on a set (the set of sentences).
In universal logic, nitary closure operators are still studied under the name consequence operator, which was coined
by Tarski. The set S represents a set of sentences, a subset T of S a theory, and cl(T) is the set of all sentences that
follow from the theory. Nowadays the term can refer to closure operators which need not be nitary; nitary closure
operators are then sometimes called nite consequence operators.

5 Closed sets
The closed sets with respect to a closure operator on S form a subset C of the power set P(S). Any intersection of
sets in C is again in C. In other words, C is a complete meet-subsemilattice of P(S). Conversely, if C P(S) is closed
under arbitrary intersections, then the function that associates to every subset X of S the smallest set Y C such that
X Y is a closure operator.
A closure operator on a set is topological if and only if the set of closed sets is closed under nite unions, i.e., C is a
meet-complete sublattice of P(S). Even for non-topological closure operators, C can be seen as having the structure
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of a lattice. (The join of two sets X,Y P(S) being cl(X Y).) But then C is not a sublattice of the lattice P(S).
Given a nitary closure operator on a set, the closures of nite sets are exactly the compact elements of the set C of
closed sets. It follows that C is an algebraic poset. Since C is also a lattice, it is often referred to as an algebraic lattice
in this context. Conversely, if C is an algebraic poset, then the closure operator is nitary.

6 Closure operators on partially ordered sets

A partially ordered set (poset) is a set together with a partial order , i.e. a binary relation which is reexive (a a),
transitive (a b c implies a c) and antisymmetric (a b a implies a = b). Every power set P(S) together with
inclusion is a partially ordered set.
A function cl: P P from a partial order P to itself is called a closure operator if it satises the following axioms for
all elements x, y in P.

More succinct alternatives are available: the denition above is equivalent to the single axiom

x cl(y) if and only if cl(x) cl(y)

for all x, y in P.
Using the pointwise order on functions between posets, one may alternatively write the extensiveness property as idP
cl, where id is the identity function. A self-map k that that is increasing and idempotent, but satises the dual of
the extensiveness property, i.e. k idP is called a kernel operator,[2] interior operator,[3] or dual closure.[4] As
examples, if A is a subset of a set B, then the self-map on the powerset of B given by A(X) = A X is a closure
operator, whereas A(X) = A X is a kernel operator. The ceiling function from the real numbers to the real numbers,
which assigns to every real x the smallest integer not smaller than x, is another example of a closure operator.
A xpoint of the function cl, i.e. an element c of P that satises cl(c) = c, is called a closed element. A closure
operator on a partially ordered set is determined by its closed elements. If c is a closed element, then x c and cl(x)
c are equivalent conditions.
Every Galois connection (or residuated mapping) gives rise to a closure operator (as is explained in that article).
In fact, every closure operator arises in this way from a suitable Galois connection.[5] The Galois connection is not
uniquely determined by the closure operator. One Galois connection that gives rise to the closure operator cl can be
described as follows: if A is the set of closed elements with respect to cl, then cl: P A is the lower adjoint of a
Galois connection between P and A, with the upper adjoint being the embedding of A into P. Furthermore, every
lower adjoint of an embedding of some subset into P is a closure operator. Closure operators are lower adjoints of
embeddings. Note however that not every embedding has a lower adjoint.
Any partially ordered set P can be viewed as a category, with a single morphism from x to y if and only if x y.
The closure operators on the partially ordered set P are then nothing but the monads on the category P. Equivalently,
a closure operator can be viewed as an endofunctor on the category of partially ordered sets that has the additional
idempotent and extensive properties.
If P is a complete lattice, then a subset A of P is the set of closed elements for some closure operator on P if and only
if A is a Moore family on P, i.e. the largest element of P is in A, and the inmum (meet) of any non-empty subset of
A is again in A. Any such set A is itself a complete lattice with the order inherited from P (but the supremum (join)
operation might dier from that of P). When P is the powerset Boolean algebra of a set X, then a Moore family on
P is called a closure system on X.
The closure operators on P form themselves a complete lattice; the order on closure operators is dened by cl1 cl2
i cl1 (x) cl2 (x) for all x in P.

7 See also
ech closure operator
4 10 EXTERNAL LINKS

Galois connection

Interior algebra
Kuratowski closure axioms

Closure (topology) and Interior (topology)

8 Notes
[1] Blyth p.11

[2] Giertz, p. 26

[3] Ern, p. 2, uses closure (resp. interior) operation

[4] Blyth, p. 10

[5] Blyth, p. 10

9 References
Garrett Birkho. 1967 (1940). Lattice Theory, 3rd ed. American Mathematical Society.

Burris, Stanley N., and H.P. Sankappanavar (1981) A Course in Universal Algebra Springer-Verlag. ISBN
3-540-90578-2 Free online edition.

Brown, D.J. and Suszko, R. (1973) Abstract Logics, Dissertationes Mathematicae 102- 9-42.
Castellini, G. (2003) Categorical closure operators. Boston MA: Birkhaeuser.

Edelman, Paul H. (1980) Meet-distributive lattices and the anti-exchange closure, Algebra Universalis 10: 290-
299.

Gerla, G. (2000) Fuzzy Logic: Mathematical Tools for Approximate Reasoning. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Lloyd, J.W. (1987) Foundations of Logic Programming. Springer-Verlag.

Tarski, Alfred (1983) Fundamental concepts of the methodology of deductive sciences in Logic, Semantics,
Metamathematics. Hackett (1956 ed., Oxford University Press).

Alfred Tarski (1956) Logic, semantics and metamathematics. Oxford University Press.
Ward, Morgan (1942) The closure operators of a lattice, Annals of Mathematics 43: 191-96.

G. Gierz, K. H. Hofmann, K. Keimel, J. D. Lawson, M. Mislove, D. S. Scott: Continuous Lattices and Domains,
Cambridge University Press, 2003
T.S. Blyth, Lattices and Ordered Algebraic Structures, Springer, 2005, ISBN 1-85233-905-5.

M. Ern, J. Koslowski, A. Melton, G. E. Strecker, A primer on Galois connections, in: Proceedings of the 1991
Summer Conference on General Topology and Applications in Honor of Mary Ellen Rudin and Her Work,
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 704, 1993, pp. 103125. Available online in various le
formats: PS.GZ PS

10 External links
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Propositional Consequence Relations and Algebraic Logic" -- by Ra-
mon Jansana.
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