Sub-Stonean spaces and corona sets

A self-contained account of the theory of sub-Stonean spaces, and their relations to Stonean spaces and Rickart spaces is given. Of particular interest are the corona sets (of the form β(X) for locally compact, σ-compact spaces, because these highly nontrivial sub-Stonean spaces lend themselves to C?ech-cohomological considerations. The theory of sub-Stonean spaces is essential for our solution of the diagonalization problem for C(X)? M_n, found in K. Grove and G. K. Pedersen, Diagonalizing matrices over C(X), submitted for publication.