Existential completions and Herbrand's theorem

Abstract: Recently, Abbadini and Guffanti gave an algebraic proof of Herbrand's theorem using a completion for Lawvere doctrines that freely adds existential and universal quantifiers. A more direct argument can be given by only completing with respect to existential quantifiers. We construct the free existential completion on a presheaf of distributive lattices, and deduce Herbrand's theorem for coherent logic from the explicit description. We also discuss the cases involving presheaves of meet-semilattices, due to Trotta, and presheaves of frames.