English

On topological groupoids that represent theories

Category Theory 2024-08-28 v2 Algebraic Geometry Logic

Abstract

Grothendieck toposes, and by extension, logical theories, can be represented by topological structures. Butz and Moerdijk showed that every topos with enough points can be represented as the topos of sheaves on an open topological groupoid. This paper tackles a follow-up question: we characterise, in model-theoretic terms, which open topological groupoids can represent the classifying topos of a theory. Intuitively, this characterises which groupoids of models contain enough information to reconstruct the theory. Our treatment subsumes many of the previous approaches found in the literature, such as that of Awodey, Forssell, Butz and Moerdijk.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.16331,
  title  = {On topological groupoids that represent theories},
  author = {Joshua Wrigley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.16331},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

46 pages. Considerable changes: exposition condensed and statements tightened. New sections on further applications and a worked example

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:17:02.423Z