Proper morphisms of $\infty$-topoi

Abstract

We characterise proper morphisms of $\infty$-topoi in terms of a relativised notion of compactness: we show that a geometric morphism of $\infty$-topoi is proper if and only if it commutes with colimits indexed by filtered internal $\infty$-categories in the target. In particular, our result implies that for any $\infty$-topos, the global sections functor is proper if and only if it preserves filtered colimits. As an application, we show that every proper and separated map of topological spaces gives rise to a proper morphism between the associated sheaf $\infty$-topoi, generalising a result of Lurie. Along the way, we develop some aspects of the theory of localic higher topoi internal to an $\infty$-topos, which might be of independent interest.