A note on powers of Boolean spaces with internal semigroups

Abstract

Boolean spaces with internal semigroups generalize profinite semigroups and are pertinent for the recognition of not-necessarily regular languages. Via recognition, the study of existential quantification in logic on words amounts to the study of certain spans of Boolean spaces with internal semigroups. In turn, these can be understood as the superposition of a span of Boolean spaces and a span of semigroups. In this note, we first study these separately. More precisely, we identify the conditions under which each of these spans gives rise to a morphism into the respective power or Vietoris construction of the corresponding structure. Combining these characterizations, we obtain such a characterization for spans of Boolean spaces with internal semigroups which we use to describe the topo-algebraic counterpart of monadic second-order existential quantification. This is closely related to a part of the earlier work on existential quantification in first-order logic on words by Gehrke, Petri\c san and Reggio. The observation that certain morphisms lift contravariantly to the appropriate power structures makes our analysis very simple.