Another Approach to Topological Descent Theory

Abstract

In the category Top of topological spaces and continuous functions, we prove that surjective maps which are descent morphisms with respect to the class E of continuous bijections are exactly the descent morphisms, providing a new characterization of the latter in terms of subfibrations E(X) of the basic fibration given by Top/X which are, essentially, complete lattices. Also effective descent morphisms are characterized in terms of effective morphisms with respect to continuous bijections. For classes E satisfying suitable conditions, we show that the class of effective descent morphisms coincides with the one of effective E-descent morphisms.