TITLE: Constructing rings with a desired prime spectrum
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: Given a partially ordered set $P$, I'm interested in what is known about when $P$ is the prime spectrum of some (not necessarily commutative, not necessarily unital) ring: i.e., when does there exist a ring $R$ having $\mathrm{Spec}(R) \cong P$ (as an order isomorphism).
Obviously some conditions will be needed on $P$, for example, that every descending chain has a greatest lower bound (because the intersection of a descending chain of prime ideals is prime).  From Bergman (personal correspondence, and http://math.berkeley.edu/~gbergman/papers/pm_arrays.pdf), every finite partially ordered set can occur as a subset of the prime ideals of some commutative ring.  From other as yet unpublished work, a partially ordered set can occur as precisely the prime spectrum of a (non-commutative, not necessarily unital) ring in case: (a) it has the D.C.C., (b) it is chain-finite, and (c) the set of elements covered by any given element is countable.  However, none of those conditions are necessary.
Is anyone aware of any more results on this subject?

REPLY [4 votes]: In H.A. Priestley, ''Spectral Sets'' (1994), a partially ordered set P is called spectral if it occurs as the specialization order of a spectral topology. The cited paper is a survey of the known results: in particular note Theorem 1.1: a poset is spectral iff it is profinite, iff it is the spectrum of a distributive lattice.