We introduce the notion of a majority category --- the categorical counterpart of varieties of universal algebras admitting a majority term. This notion can be thought to capture properties of the category of lattices, in a way that parallels how Mal'tsev categories capture properties of the category of groups. Among algebraic majority categories are the categories of lattices, Boolean algebras, and Heyting algebras. Many geometric categories such as the category of topological spaces, metric spaces, ordered sets, any topos, ect., are comajority categories (i.e.~their duals are majority categories), and we show that, under mild assumptions, the only categories which are both majority and comajority, are the preorders. Mal'tsev majority categories provide an alternative generalization of arithmetical categories to protoarithmetical categories in the sense of Bourn. We show that every Mal'tsev majority category is protoarithmetical, provide a counter-example for the converse implication, and show that in the Barr-exact context, the converse implication also holds. We can then conclude that a category is arithmetical if and only if it is a Barr-exact Mal'tsev majority category, recovering in the varietal context a well-known result of Pixley.
A classification theorem for three different sorts of Mal'tsev categories is proven. The theorem provides a classification for Mal'tsev category, naturally Malt'sev category, and weakly Mal'tsev category in terms of classifying classes of spans. The class of all spans characterizes naturally Mal'tsev categories. The class of relations (i.e. jointly monomorphic spans) characterizes Mal'tsev categories. The class of strong relations (i.e. jointly strongly monomorphic spans) characterizes weakly Mal'tsev categories. The result is based on the uniqueness of internal categorical structures such as …
We study the difference between internal categories and internal groupoids in terms of generalised Mal'tsev properties---the weak Mal'tsev property on the one hand, and $n$-permutability on the other. In the first part of the article we give conditions on internal categorical structures which detect whether the surrounding category is naturally Mal'tsev, Mal'tsev or weakly Mal'tsev. We show that these do not depend on the existence of binary products. In the second part we focus on varieties of algebras.
Higher dimensional central extensions of groups were introduced by G. Janelidze as particular instances of the abstract notion of covering morphism from categorical Galois theory. More recently, the notion has been extended to and studied in arbitrary semi-abelian categories. In this article, we further extend the scope to exact Mal'tsev categories and beyond.
In this paper, we obtain a non-abelian analogue of Lubkin's embedding theorem for abelian categories. Our theorem faithfully embeds any small regular Mal'tsev category $\mathbb{C}$ in an $n$-th power of a particular locally finitely presentable regular Mal'tsev category. The embedding preserves and reflects finite limits, isomorphisms and regular epimorphisms, as in the case of Barr's embedding theorem for regular categories. Furthermore, we show that we can take $n$ to be the (cardinal) number of subobjects of the terminal object in $\mathbb{C}$.
We prove that a regular category $\mathcal C$ is a Mal'tsev category if and only if a strong form of the denormalised $3 \times 3$ Lemma holds true in $\mathcal C$. In this version of the $3 \times 3$ Lemma, the vertical exact forks are replaced by pullbacks of regular epimorphisms along arbitrary morphisms. The shape of the diagram it determines suggests to call it the Cuboid Lemma. This new characterisation of regular categories that are Mal'tsev categories (= $2$-permutable) is similar to the one previously obtained for Goursat categories (= $3$-permutable). We also analyse the "relative" v…
Normal monomorphisms in the sense of Bourn describe the equivalence classes of an internal equivalence relation. Although the definition is given in the fairly general setting of a category with finite limits, later investigations on this subject often focus on protomodular settings, where normality becomes a property. This paper clarifies the connections between internal equivalence relations and Bourn-normal monomorphisms in regular Mal'tesv categories with pushouts of split monomorphisms along arbitrary morphisms, whereas a full description is achieved for quasi-pointed regular Mal'tsev cat…
We show that the category of internal groupoids in an exact Mal'tsev category is reflective, and in fact a Birkhoff subcategory of the category of simplicial objects. We then characterize the central extensions of the corresponding Galois structure, and show that regular epimorphisms admit a relative monotone-light factorization system in the sense of Chikhladze. We also draw some comparison with Kan complexes. By comparing the reflections of simplicial objects and reflexive graphs into groupoids, we exhibit a connection with weighted commutators (as defined by Gran, Janelidze and Ursini).
The aim of this article is to better understand the correspondence between $n$-cubic extensions and $3^n$-diagrams, which may be seen as non-abelian Yoneda extensions, useful in (co)homology of non-abelian algebraic structures. We study a higher-dimensional version of the coequaliser/kernel pair adjunction, which relates $n$-fold reflexive graphs with $n$-fold arrows in any exact Mal'tsev category. We first ask ourselves how this adjunction restricts to an equivalence of categories. This leads to the concept of an effective $n$-fold equivalence relation, corresponding to the $n$-fold regular e…
We define a Galois structure on the category of pairs of equivalence relations in an exact Mal'tsev category, and characterize central and double central extensions in terms of higher commutator conditions. These results generalize both the ones related to the abelianization functor in exact Mal'tsev categories, and the ones corresponding to the reflection from the category of internal reflexive graphs to the subcategory of internal groupoids. Some examples and applications are given in the categories of groups, precrossed modules, precrossed modules of Lie algebras, and compact groups.
In this paper, we investigate the property (P) that finite products commute with arbitrary coequalizers in pointed categories. Examples of such categories include any regular unital or (pointed) majority category with coequalizers, as well as any pointed factor permutable category with coequalizers. We establish a Mal'tsev term condition characterizing pointed varieties of universal algebras satisfying (P). We then consider categories satisfying (P) locally, i.e., those categories for which every fibre $Pt_{\mathbb{C}}(X)$ of the fibration of points $π: Pt_{\mathbb{C}} \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ …
Mal'tsev categories turned out to be a central concept in categorical algebra. On one hand, the simplicity and the beauty of the notion is revealed through a lot of characterizations of different flavour. Depending on the context, one can define Mal'tsev categories as those for which `any reflexive relation is an equivalence'; `any relation is difunctional'; `the composition of equivalence relations on a same object is commutative'; `each fibre of the fibration of points is unital' or `the forgetful functor from internal groupoids to reflexive graphs is saturated on subobjects'. For a variety …
A detailed description of internal bicategory in the category of groups is derived from the general description of internal bicategories in weakly Mal'tsev sesquicategories. The example of bicategory of paths in a topological abelian group is presented, as well as a description of internal bicategories in weakly Mal'tsev categories with a $V$-Mal'tsev operation in the sense of Pedicchio.
$2$-star-permutable categories were introduced in a joint work with Z. Janelidze and A. Ursini as a common generalisation of regular Mal'tsev categories and of normal subtractive categories. In the present article we first characterise these categories in terms of what we call star-regular pushouts. We then show that the $3 \times 3$ Lemma characterising normal subtractive categories and the Cuboid Lemma characterising regular Mal'tsev categories are special instances of a more general homological lemma for star-exact sequences. We prove that $2$-star-permutability is equivalent to the validit…
We study nilpotency in the context of exact Mal'tsev categories taking central extensions as the primitive notion. This yields a nilpotency tower which is analysed from the perspective of Goodwillie's functor calculus. We show in particular that the reflection into the subcategory of $n$-nilpotent objects is the universal endofunctor of degree $n$ if and only if every $n$-nilpotent object is $n$-folded. In the special context of a semi-abelian category, an object is $n$-folded precisely when its Higgins commutator of length $n+1$ vanishes.
University of Coimbra（科英布拉大学）；University of the Algarve（阿尔加维大学）；Center for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA)（数学与应用研究与发展中心（CIDMA））；University of Aveiro（阿威罗大学）
We prove that Mal'tsev and Goursat categories may be characterised through stronger variations of the Shifting Lemma, that is classically expressed in terms of three congruences $R$, $S$ and $T$, and characterises congruence modular varieties. We first show that a regular category $\mathcal C$ is a Mal'tsev category if and only if the Shifting Lemma holds for reflexive relations on the same object in $\mathcal C$. Moreover, we prove that a regular category $\mathcal C$ is a Goursat category if and only if the Shifting Lemma holds for a reflexive relation $S$ and reflexive and positive relation…
Matrix conditions extend linear Mal'tsev conditions from Universal Algebra to exactness properties in Category Theory. Some can be stated in the finitely complete context while, in general, they can only be stated for regular categories. We study when such a matrix condition implies the Mal'tsev property. Our main results assert that, for both types of matrices, this implication is equivalent to the corresponding implication restricted to the context of varieties of universal algebras.
In universal algebra, it is well known that varieties admitting a majority term admit several Mal'tsev-type characterizations. The main aim of this paper is to establish categorical counterparts of some of these characterizations for regular categories. We prove a categorical version of Bergman's Double-projection Theorem: a regular category is a majority category if and only if every subobject $S$ of a finite product $A_1 \times A_2 \times \cdots \times A_n$ is uniquely determined by its two-fold projections. We also establish a categorical counterpart of the Pairwise Chinese Remainder Theore…
This paper provides a short introduction to the notion of regular category and its use in categorical algebra. We first prove some of its basic properties, and consider some fundamental algebraic examples. We then analyse the algebraic properties of the categories satisfying the additional Mal'tsev axiom, and then the weaker Goursat axiom. These latter contexts can be seen as the categorical counterparts of the properties of $2$-permutability and of $3$-permutability of congruences in universal algebra. Mal'tsev and Goursat categories have been intensively studied in the last years: we present…
We introduce the notion of star-symmetry for relations in a multi-pointed category and use it to obtain a characterization of the projective covers of 2-star-permutable categories. This generalizes the results of Rosický-Vitale for regular Mal'tsev categories, as well as those of Gran-Rodelo for regular subtractive categories. We apply the characterization in terms of star-symmetry to recover the syntactic conditions defining E-subtractive varieties in the sense of Ursini.
A semi-localization of a category is a full reflective subcategory with the property that the reflector is semi-left-exact. In this article we first determine an abstract characterization of the categories which are semi-localizations of an exact Mal'tsev category, by specializing a result due to S. Mantovani. We then turn our attention to semi-abelian categories, where a special type of semi-localizations are known to coincide with torsion-free subcategories. A new characterisation of protomodular categories in terms of binary relations is obtained, inspired by the one discovered in the point…
