Thomas A. Alspaugh
CPOs and Lattices

Complete partial orders (cpos)

Let P be an ordered set. P is a cpo iff for every pair x,yP, their LUB xy is an elements of P.

Another way of saying the same thing: an ordered set P is a cpo if it is closed under the cup operation.

A cpo with a least element ⊥ is called a cpo with bottom. Some authors use "cpo" to mean "cpo with bottom".

A cpo is sort of a "half-lattice" (see below). A lattice has LUBs and GLBs, a cpo has LUBs only.

Examples:

  1. Any powerset P, ordered by is a cpo.

    Every powerset contains ; S for every subset SP, so is a lower bound; and no other set is a lower bound for P, so is the GLB of the entire powerset P, and thus is ⊥. See Figure 1.

Lattices

Let P be an ordered set. P is a lattice iff for every pair x,yP, their LUB xy and GLB xy are both elements of P.

Another way of saying the same thing: an ordered set P is a lattice if it is closed under the cap and cup operations.

A lattice may have a top and/or a bottom, but an infinite lattice need not have either. A finite lattice always has a top and a bottom.

Examples:

  1. Any powerset P is a lattice.

    The LUB (GLB) of two sets X and Y is their union (intersection), and a powerset is closed under intersection (union), so P is a lattice. P is finite and thus has a top and a bottom; ⊤ is the set S of which P is the powerset, and ⊥ is the empty set . See ordered set Figure 2.

  2. The integers are a lattice.

    The LUB (GLB) of two integers x and y is the lesser (greater) of the two, and so is an integer; thus the integers are closed under LUB (GLB). The integers are an infinite set and so need not have a top or a bottom, and in fact do not; there is no greatest or least integer. See ordered set Figure 1.

For further reading

B. A. Davey and H. A. Priestley. Introduction to Lattices and Order. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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