Roughly the first half on the skew reflection theorem was presented to the Australian Category Seminar on 27 August 2014. Version 2 is 14 pages and includes a title change. There is new material on skew warpings riding an action and a skew-monoidal lifting theorem. Version 3: added reference; now published in TAC
发表信息：
Theory and Applications of Categories, Vol. 30, No. 28, 2015, pp. 985-1000
The Day Reflection Theorem gives conditions under which a reflective subcategory of a closed monoidal category can be equipped with a closed monoidal structure in such a way that the reflection adjunction becomes a monoidal adjunction. We adapt this result to skew monoidal categories. The beauty of this variant is further evidence that the direction choices involved in the skew notion are important for organizing, and adding depth to, certain mathematical phenomena. We also provide conditions under which a skew monoidal structure can be lifted to the category of Eilenberg-Moore algebras for a comonad.
We describe a perfect correspondence between skew monoidal categories and certain generalised multicategories, called skew multicategories, that arise in nature.
This article shows that the units of a skew monoidal category are unique up to a unique isomorphism, and internalises this fact to skew monoidales. Some benefits of certain extra structure on the unit maps are also discussed before the axioms of a skew monoidal category are shown to be independent.
The basic data for a skew-monoidal category are the same as for a monoidal category, except that the constraint morphisms are no longer required to be invertible. The constraints are given a specific orientation and satisfy Mac Lane's five axioms. Whilst recent applications justify the use of skew-monoidal structure, they do not give an intrinsic justification for the form the structure takes (the orientation of the constraints and the axioms that they satisfy). This paper provides a perspective on skew-monoidal structure which, amongst other things, makes it quite apparent why this particular…
We introduce the notion of a braiding on a skew monoidal category, whose curious feature is that the defining isomorphisms involve three objects rather than two. These braidings are shown to arise from, and classify, cobraidings (also known as coquasitriangular structures) on bialgebras. Using a multicategorical approach we also describe examples of braidings on skew monoidal categories arising from 2-category theory.
The Catalan simplicial set $\mathbb{C}$ is known to classify skew-monoidal categories in the sense that a map from $\mathbb{C}$ to a suitably defined nerve of $\mathrm{Cat}$ is precisely a skew-monoidal category \cite{Catalan1}. We extend this result to the case of skew monoidales internal to any monoidal bicategory $\mathcal{B}$. We then show that monoidal bicategories themselves are classified by maps from $\mathbb{C}$ to a suitably defined nerve of $\mathrm{Bicat}$ and extend this result to obtain a definition of skew-monoidal bicategory that aligns with existing theory.
Kornel Szlachányi recently used the term skew-monoidal category for a particular laxified version of monoidal category. He showed that bialgebroids $H$ with base ring $R$ could be characterized in terms of skew-monoidal structures on the category of one-sided $R$-modules for which the lax unit was $R$ itself. We define skew monoidales (or skew pseudo-monoids) in any monoidal bicategory $\mathscr M$. These are skew-monoidal categories when $\mathscr M$ is $\mathrm{Cat}$. Our main results are presented at the level of monoidal bicategories. However, a consequence is that quantum categories in th…
Skew-monoidal categories arise when the associator and the left and right units of a monoidal category are, in a specific way, not invertible. We prove that the closed skew-monoidal structures on the category of right R-modules are precisely the right bialgebroids over the ring R. These skew-monoidal structures induce quotient skew-monoidal structures on the category of R-R-bimodules and this leads to the following generalization: Opmonoidal monads on a monoidal category correspond to skew-monoidal structures with the same unit object which are compatible with the ordinary monoidal structure b…
A general result relating skew monoidal structures and monads is proved. This is applied to quantum categories and bialgebroids. Ordinary categories are monads in the bicategory whose morphisms are spans between sets. Quantum categories were originally defined as monoidal comonads on endomorphism objects in a particular monoidal bicategory M. Then they were shown also to be skew monoidal structures (with an appropriate unit) on objects in M. Now we see in what kind of M quantum categories are merely monads.
I describe a generalization of the notion of operadic category due to Batanin and Markl. For each such operadic category I describe a skew monoidal category of collections, such that a monoid in this skew monoidal category is precisely an operad over the operadic category. In fact I describe two skew monoidal categories with this property. The first has the feature that the operadic category can be recovered from the skew monoidal category of collections; the second has the feature that the right unit constraint is invertible. In the case of the operadic category S of finite sets and functions…
This paper is about skew monoidal tensored V-categories (= skew monoidal hommed V-actegories) and their categories of modules. A module over <M,*,R> is an algebra for the monad T = R * _ on M. We study in detail the skew monoidal structure of M^T and construct a skew monoidal forgetful functor from M^T to the category of E-objects in M where E=M(R,R) is the endomorphism monoid of the unit object R. Then we give conditions for the forgetful functor to be strong monoidal and for the category M^T of modules to be monoidal. In formulating these conditions a notion of `self-cocomplete' subcategorie…
The skew monoidal categories of Szlachányi are a weakening of monoidal categories where the three structural laws of left and right unitality and associativity are not required to be isomorphisms but merely transformations in a particular direction. In previous work, we showed that the free skew monoidal category on a set of generating objects can be concretely presented as a sequent calculus. This calculus enjoys cut elimination and admits focusing, i.e. a subsystem of canonical derivations, which solves the coherence problem for skew monoidal categories. In this paper, we develop sequent cal…
Skew monoidal categories are monoidal categories with non-invertible `coherence' morphisms. As shown in a previous paper bialgebroids over a ring R can be characterized as the closed skew monoidal structures on the category Mod R in which the unit object is R. This offers a new approach to bialgebroids and Hopf algebroids. Little is known about skew monoidal structures on general categories. In the present paper we study the one-object case: skew monoidal monoids (SMM). We show that they possess a dual pair of bialgebroids describing the symmetries of the (co)module categories of the SMM. Thes…
Szlachányi showed that bialgebroids can be characterised using skew monoidal categories. The characterisation reduces the amount of data, structure, and properties required to define them. Lack and Street provide a bicategorical account of that same fact; they characterise quantum categories in terms of skew monoidal structures internal to a monoidal bicategory. A quantum category is an opmonoidal monad on an enveloping monoidale $R^\circ\otimes R$ in a monoidal bicategory. In a previous paper, we characterised opmonoidal arrows on enveloping monoidales as a simpler structure called oplax acti…
We explain the sense in which a warping on a monoidal category is the same as a pseudomonad on the corresponding one-object bicategory, and we describe extensions of this to the setting of skew monoidal categories: these are a generalization of monoidal categories in which the associativity and unit maps are not required to be invertible. Our analysis leads us to describe a normalization process for skew monoidal categories, which produces a universal skew monoidal category for which the right unit map is invertible.
Szlachányi's skew monoidal categories are a well-motivated variation of monoidal categories in which the unitors and associator are not required to be natural isomorphisms, but merely natural transformations in a particular direction. We present a sequent calculus for skew monoidal categories, building on the recent formulation by one of the authors of a sequent calculus for the Tamari order (skew semigroup categories). In this calculus, antecedents consist of a stoup (an optional formula) followed by a context, and the connectives behave like in the standard monoidal sequent calculus except t…
We introduce semidirect products of skew monoidal categories as a categorification of semidirect products of monoids (or, perhaps more familiarly, of groups). We also discuss how this construction interacts with monoidal, autonomous and closed monoidal structures. We end by producing some examples of monoidal categories which are left closed but not right closed.
I motivate a variation (due to K. Szlachányi) of monoidal categories called skew-monoidal categories where the unital and associativity laws are not required to be isomorphisms, only natural transformations. Coherence has to be formulated differently than in the well-known monoidal case. In my (to my knowledge new) version, it becomes a statement of uniqueness of normalizing rewrites. I present a proof of this coherence theorem and also formalize it fully in the dependently typed programming language Agda.
We study Quillen model categories equipped with a monoidal skew closed structure that descends to a genuine monoidal closed structure on the homotopy category. Our examples are 2-categorical and include permutative categories and bicategories. Using the skew framework, we adapt Eilenberg and Kelly's theorem relating monoidal and closed structure to the homotopical setting. This is applied to the construction of monoidal bicategories arising from the pseudo-commutative 2-monads of Hyland and Power.
In \cite{LS14} the analogy between the Kleisli construction and the construction of "warping a skew monoidale category" in the sense of \cite{LS12} was outlined. In this note we present the same work in a slightly more formal way.
A concrete model of the free skew-monoidal category Fsk on a single generating object is obtained. The situation is clubbable in the sense of G.M. Kelly, so this allows a description of the free skew-monoidal category on any category. As the objects of Fsk are meaningfully bracketed words in the skew unit I and the generating object X, it is necessary to examine bracketings and to find the appropriate kinds of morphisms between them. This leads us to relationships between triangulations of polygons, the Tamari lattice, left and right bracketing functions, and the orientals. A consequence of ou…
This paper introduces a skew variant of the notion of enriched category, suitable for enrichment over a skew-monoidal category, the main novelty of which is that the elements of the enriched hom-objects need not be in bijection with the morphisms of the underlying category. This is the natural setting in which to introduce the notion of locally weak comonad, which is fundamental to the theory of enriched algebraic weak factorisation systems. The equivalence, for a monoidal closed category $\mathcal{V}$, between tensored $\mathcal{V}$-categories and hommed $\mathcal{V}$-actegories is extended t…
Many monoidal-type objects are known to be classified by maps from the Catalan simplicial set $\mathbb{C}$ to various nerves of categories and higher categories. There are, for example, three different nerves of the 2-category of categories $\mathsf{Cat}$ with the property that maps from $\mathbb{C}$ into them are in one to one correspondence with strict monoidal, monoidal, and skew monoidal categories. In this last case, the classification result can be understood as justifying the definition of skew monoidal categories intrinsically in terms of the structure of $\mathbb{C}$. In this paper, w…
We treat the problem of lifting bicategories into double categories through categories of vertical morphisms. We make use of a specific instance of the Grothendieck construction to provide, for every bicategory equipped with a possible vertical category, together with a suitable monoidal pre-cosheaf relating these two structures, a double category lifting the decorated bicategory along the category of vertical morphisms provided as set of initial conditions. We prove in particular that every decorated bicategory admits a lift to a double category. We study relations of instances of our constru…
Spurred by the new examples found by Kornel Szlachányi of a form of lax monoidal category, the author felt the time ripe to publish a reworking of Eilenberg-Kelly's original paper on closed categories appropriate to the laxer context. The new examples are connected with bialgebroids. With Stephen Lack, we have also used the concept to give an alternative definition of quantum category and quantum groupoid. Szlachányi has called the lax notion {\em skew monoidal}. This paper defines {\em skew closed category}, proves Yoneda lemmas for categories enriched over such, and looks at closed cocomplet…
If $\mathcal{C}$ is a cocomplete monoidal category in which tensoring from both sides preserves coequalizers, then the category of monoids over $\mathcal{C}$ is cocomplete. The same holds if $\mathcal{C}$ has regular factorizations and tensoring only preserves regular epimorphisms. As an application a lifting theorem for an adjunction with a monoidal right adjoint to an adjunction between the respective categories of monoids is proved.
Alain Bruguieres, in his talk [1], announced his work [2] with Alexis Virelizier and the second author which dealt with lifting closed structure on a monoidal category to the category of Eilenberg-Moore algebras for an opmonoidal monad. Our purpose here is to generalize that work to the context internal to an autonomous monoidal bicategory. The result then applies to quantum categories and bialgebroids.
Given a horizontal monoid M in a duoidal category F, we examine the relationship between bimonoid structures on M and monoidal structures on the category of right M-modules which lift the vertical monoidal structure of F. We obtain our result using a variant of the Tannaka adjunction. The approach taken utilizes hom-enriched categories rather than categories on which a monoidal category acts ("actegories"). The requirement of enrichment in F itself demands the existence of some internal homs, leading to the consideration of convolution for duoidal categories. Proving that certain hom-functors …
Quantum categories have been recently studied because of their relation to bialgebroids, small categories, and skew monoidales. This is the first of a series of papers based on the author's PhD thesis in which we examine the theory of quantum categories developed by Day, Lack, and Street. A quantum category is an opmonoidal monad on the monoidale associated to a biduality $R\dashv R^{\circ}$, or enveloping monoidale, in a monoidal bicategory of modules $\mathsf{Mod}(\mathcal{V})$ for a monoidal category $\mathcal{V}$. Lack and Street proved that quantum categories are in equivalence with right…
We define a weak bimonad as a monad T on a monoidal category M with the property that the Eilenberg-Moore category M^T is monoidal and the forgetful functor from M^T to M is separable Frobenius. Whenever M is also Cauchy complete, a simple set of axioms is provided, that characterizes the monoidal structure of M^T as a weak lifting of the monoidal structure of M . The relation to bimonads, and the relation to weak bimonoids in a braided monoidal category are revealed. We also discuss antipodes, obtaining the notion of weak Hopf monad.
In this article we extend the theory of lax monoidal structures, also known as multitensors, and the monads on categories of enriched graphs that they give rise to. Our first principal result -- the lifting theorem for multitensors -- enables us to see the Gray tensor product of 2-categories and the Crans tensor product of Gray categories as part of this framework. We define weak n-categories with strict units by means of a notion of reduced higher operad, using the theory of algebraic weak factorisation systems. Our second principal result is to establish a lax tensor product on the category …
This paper clarifies basic definitions in the universal construction of topological theories and monoidal categories. The definition of the universal construction is given for various types of monoidal categories, including rigid and symmetric. It is also explained how to set up the universal construction for non-monoidal categories. The second part of the paper explains how to associate a rigid symmetric monoidal category to a small category, a sort of the Brauer envelope of a category. The universal construction for the Brauer envelopes generalizes some earlier work of the first two authors …
We define a notion of category enriched over an oplax monoidal category $V$, extending the usual definition of category enriched over a monoidal category. Even though oplax monoidal structures involve infinitely many functors $V^n\to V$, defining categories enriched over $V$ only requires the lower arity maps $(n \leq 3)$, similarly to the monoidal case. The focal point of the enrichment theory shifts, in the oplax case, from the notion of $V$-category (given by collections of objects and hom-objects together with composition and unit maps) to the one of categories enriched over $V$ (genuine c…
We prove a coherence theorem for invertible objects in a symmetric monoidal category. This is used to deduce associativity, skew-commutativity, and related results for multi-graded morphism rings, generalizing the well-known versions for stable homotopy groups.
This paper provides a homotopical version of the adjoint lifting theorem in category theory, allowing for Quillen equivalences to be lifted from monoidal model categories to categories of algebras over colored operads. The generality of our approach allows us to simultaneously answer questions of rectification and of changing the base model category to a Quillen equivalent one. We work in the setting of colored operads, and we do not require them to be $Σ$-cofibrant. Special cases of our main theorem recover many known results regarding rectification and change of model category, as well as nu…
In this paper, we develop the proof theory of skew prounital closed categories. These are variants of the skew closed categories of Street where the unit is not represented. Skew closed categories in turn are a weakening of the closed categories of Eilenberg and Kelly where no structural law is required to be invertible. The presence of a monoidal structure in these categories is not required. We construct several equivalent presentations of the free skew prounital closed category on a given set of generating objects: a categorical calculus (Hilbert-style system), a cut-free sequent calculus a…
Adobe Research（奥多比研究院）；University of Massachusetts, Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校）
We propose a layered hierarchical architecture called UCLA (Universal Causality Layered Architecture), which combines multiple levels of categorical abstraction for causal inference. At the top-most level, causal interventions are modeled combinatorially using a simplicial category of ordinal numbers. At the second layer, causal models are defined by a graph-type category. The non-random ``surgical" operations on causal structures, such as edge deletion, are captured using degeneracy and face operators from the simplicial layer above. The third categorical abstraction layer corresponds to the …
