From Freudenthal’s spectral theorem to projectable hulls of unital Archimedean lattice-groups, through compactifications of minimal spectra

Abstract

AbstractWe use a landmark result in the theory of Riesz spaces – Freudenthal’s 1936 spectral theorem – to canonically represent any Archimedean lattice-ordered groupGwith a strong unit as a (non-separating) lattice-group of real-valued continuous functions on an appropriateG-indexed zero-dimensional compactification{w_{G}Z_{G}}of its space{Z_{G}}ofminimalprime ideals. The two further ingredients needed to establish this representation are the Yosida representation ofGon its space{X_{G}}ofmaximalideals, and the well-known continuous surjection of{Z_{G}}onto{X_{G}}. We then establish our main result by showing that the inclusion-minimal extension of this representation ofGthat separates the points of{Z_{G}}– namely, the sublattice subgroup of{\operatorname{C}(Z_{G})}generated by the image ofGalong with all characteristic functions of clopen (closed and open) subsets of{Z_{G}}which are determined by elements ofG– is precisely the classical projectable hull ofG. Our main result thus reveals a fundamental relationship between projectable hulls and minimal spectra, and provides the most direct and explicit construction of projectable hulls to date. Our techniques do require the presence of a strong unit.