The tensor product as a lattice of regular galois connections

Abstract

Galois connections between concept lattices can be represented as binary relations on the context level, known as dual bonds. The latter also appear as the elements of the tensor product of concept lattices, but it is known that not all dual bonds between two lattices can be represented in this way. In this work, we define regular Galois connections as those that are represented by a dual bond in a tensor product, and characterize them in terms of lattice theory. Regular Galois connections turn out to be much more common than irregular ones, and we identify many cases in which no irregular ones can be found at all. To this end, we demonstrate that irregularity of Galois connections on sublattices can be lifted to superlattices, and observe close relationships to various notions of distributivity. This is achieved by combining methods from algebraic order theory and FCA with recent results on dual bonds. Disjunctions in formal contexts play a prominent role in the proofs and add a logical flavor to our considerations. Hence it is not surprising that our studies allow us to derive corollaries on the contextual representation of deductive systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.