Dual closure operators and their applications

Departing from a suitable categorical description of closure operators, this paper dualizes this notion and introduces some basic properties of dual closure operators. Usually these operators act on quotients rather than subobjects, and much attention is being paid here to their key examples in algebra and topology, which include the formation of monotone quotients (Eilenberg–Whyburn) and concordant quotients (Collins). In fair categorical generality, these constructions are shown to be factors of the fundamental correspondence that relates connectednesses and disconnectednesses in topology, as well as torsion classes and torsion-free classes in algebra. Depending on a given cogenerator, the paper also establishes a non-trivial correspondence between closure operators and dual closure operators in the category of R-modules. Dual closure operators must be carefully distinguished from interior operators that have been studied by other authors.