A model of the untyped lambda calculus induces a lambda theory, i.e., a congruence relation on λ-terms closed under ff- and fi-conversion. A semantics (= class of models) of the lambda calculus is incomplete if there exists a lambda theory which is not induced by any model in the semantics. In this paper we introduce a new technique to prove the incompleteness of a wide range of lambda calculus semantics, including the strongly stable one, whose incompleteness had been conjectured by Bastonero-Gouy [6, 7] and by Berline [9]. The main results of the paper are a topological incompleteness theorem and an order incompleteness theorem. In the first one we show the incompleteness of the lambda calculus semantics given in terms of topological models whose topology satisfies a property of connectedness. In the second one we prove the incompleteness of the class of partially ordered models with finitely many connected components w.r.t. the Alexandroff topology. A further result of the paper is a proof of the completeness of the semantics of the lambda calculus given in terms of topological models whose topology is non-trivial and metrizable.

After Scott, mathematical models of the type-free lambda calculus are constructed by order theoretic methods and classified into semantics according to the nature of their representable functions. Selinger [47] asked if there is a lambda theory that is not induced by any non-trivially partially ordered model (order-incompleteness problem). In terms of Alexandroff topology (the strongest topology whose specialization order is the order of the considered model) the problem of order incompleteness can be also characterized as follows: a lambda theory T is order-incomplete if, and only if, every partially ordered model of T is partitioned by the Alexandroff topology in an infinite number of connected components (= minimal upper and lower sets), each one containing exactly one element of the model. Towards an answer to the order-incompleteness problem, we give a topological proof of the following result: there exists a lambda theory whose partially ordered models are partitioned by the Alexandroff topology in an infinite number of connected components, each one containing at most one -term denotation. This result implies the incompleteness of every semantics of lambda calculus given in terms of partially ordered models whose Alexandroff topology has a finite number of connected components (e.g. the Alexandroff topology of the models of the continuous, stable and strongly stable semantics is connected).