We address the fact that composition in an opetopic weak n-category is in general not unique and hence is not a well-defined operation. We define composition with a given k-cell in an n-category by a span of (n-k)-categories. We characterise such a cell as universal if its composition span gives an equivalence of (n-k)-categories.
We define a family of structures called "opetopic algebras", which are algebraic structures with an underlying opetopic set. Examples of such are categories, planar operads, and Loday's combinads over planar trees. Opetopic algebras can be defined in two ways, either as the algebras of a "free pasting diagram" parametric right adjoint monad, or as models of a small projective sketch over the category of opetopes. We define an opetopic nerve functor that fully embeds each category of opetopic algebras into the category of opetopic sets. In particular, we obtain fully faithful opetopic nerve fun…
We define the category of tidy symmetric multicategories. We construct for each tidy symmetric multicategory Q a cartesian monad (E_Q,T_Q) and extend this assignation to a functor. We exhibit a relationship between the slice construction on symmetric multicategories, and the `free operad' monad construction on suitable monads. We use this to give an explicit description of the relationship between Baez-Dolan and Leinster opetopes.
We generalise the concepts introduced by Baez and Dolan to define opetopes constructed from symmetric operads with a category, rather than a set, of objects. We describe the category of 1-level generalised multicategories, a special case of the concept introduced by Hermida, Makkai and Power, and exhibit a full embedding of this category in the category of symmetric operads with a category of objects. As an analogy to the Baez-Dolan slice construction, we exhibit a certain multicategory of function replacement as a slice construction in the multitopic setting, and use it to construct multitope…
We continue our previous modifications of the Baez-Dolan theory of opetopes to modify the Baez-Dolan definition of universality, and thereby the category of opetopic n-categories and lax functors. For the case n=2 we exhibit an equivalence between this category and the category of bicategories and lax functors. We examine notions of strictness in the opetopic theory.
We provide various ways to characterise $Σ$-pure-injective objects in a compactly generated triangulated category. These characterisations mimic analogous well-known results from the model theory of modules. The proof involves two approaches. In the first approach we adapt arguments from the module-theoretic setting. Here the one-sorted language of modules over a fixed ring is replaced with a canonical multi-sorted language, whose sorts are given by compact objects. Throughout we use a variation of the Yoneda embedding, called the resticted Yoneda functor, which associates a multi-sorted struc…
We give a characterisation of the extriangulated categories which admit the structure of a triangulated category. We show that these are the extriangulated categories where for every object $X$ in the extriangulated category, the morphism $0 \rightarrow X$ is a deflation and the morphism $X \rightarrow 0$ is an inflation.
An algebraically exact category in one that admits all of the limits and colimits which every variety of algebras possesses and every forgetful functor between varieties preserves, and which verifies the same interactions between these limits and colimits as hold in any variety. Such categories were studied by Adámek, Lawvere and Rosický: they characterised them as the categories with small limits and sifted colimits for which the functor taking sifted colimits is continuous. They conjectured that a complete and sifted-cocomplete category should be algebraically exact just when it is Barr-exac…
We study internal structures in regular categories using monoidal methods. Groupoids in a regular Goursat category can equivalently be described as special dagger Frobenius monoids in its monoidal category of relations. Similarly, connectors can equivalently be described as Frobenius structures with a ternary multiplication. We study such ternary Frobenius structures and the relationship to binary ones, generalising that between connectors and groupoids.
The paper studies analytic functors between presheaf categories. Generalising results of A. Joyal and of R. Hasegawa for analytic endofunctors on the category of sets, we give two characterisations of analytic functors between presheaf categories over groupoids: (i) as functors preserving filtered colimits, quasi-pullbacks, and cofiltered limits; and (ii) as functors preserving filtered colimits and wide quasi-pullbacks. The development establishes that small groupoids, analytic functors between their presheaf categories, and quasi-cartesian natural transformations between them form a 2-catego…
We determine internal characterisations for when a tensor category is (super) tannakian, for fields of positive characteristic. This generalises the corresponding characterisations in characteristic zero by P. Deligne. We also explore notions of Frobenius twists in tensor categories in positive characteristic.
We give new characterisations of regular Mal'tsev categories with distributive lattice of equivalence relations through variations of the so-called Triangular Lemma and Trapezoid Lemma in universal algebra. We then give new characterisations of equivalence distributive Goursat categories (which extend $3$-permutable varieties) through variations of the Triangular and Trapezoid Lemmas involving reflexive and positive relations.
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…
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…
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…
We provide a characterisation of the category KH of compact Hausdorff spaces and continuous maps by means of categorical properties only. To this aim we introduce a notion of filtrality for coherent categories, relating certain lattices of subobjects to their Boolean centers. Our main result reads as follows: Up to equivalence, KH is the unique non-trivial well-pointed pretopos which is filtral and admits all set-indexed copowers of its terminal object.
We investigate how the concepts of intersection and sums of subobjects carry to exact categories. We obtain a new characterisation of quasi-abelian categories in terms of admitting admissible intersections in the sense of Hassoun and Roy. There are also many alternative characterisations of abelian categories as those that additionally admit admissible sums and in terms of properties of admissible morphisms. We then define a generalised notion of intersection and sum which every exact category admits. Using these new notions, we define and study classes of exact categories that satisfy the Jor…
We give a characterisation of functors whose induced functor on the level of localisations is an equivalence and where the isomorphism inverse is induced by some kind of replacements such as projective resolutions or cofibrant replacements.
As shown in a previous paper by the same authors, the theory of Galois functors provides a categorical framework for the characterisation of bimonads on any category as Hopf monads and also for the characterisation of opmonoidal monads on monoidal categories as right Hopf monads in the sense of Bruguieres and Virelizier. Hereby the central part is to describe conditions under which a comparison functor between the base category and the category of Hopf modules becomes an equivalence (Fundamental Theorem). For monoidal categories, Aguiar and Chase extended the setting by replacing the base cate…
This article consists of an interesting characterisation of a skew monoidale in the monoidal bicategory $Span$. After discussing the shift or decalage functor on simplicial sets we characterise these skew monoidales as categories $\mathbb C$ together with a functor $R \colon Dec(\mathbb C) \longrightarrow \mathbb C$ which satisfies two conditions and give an example where the unit of the skew monoidale is not of a restricted type.
We generalise Yoshino's definition of a degeneration of two Cohen Macaulay modules to a definition of degeneration between two objects in a triangulated category. We derive some natural properties for the triangulated category and the degeneration under which the Yoshino-style degeneration is equivalent to the degeneration defined by a specific distinguished triangle analogous to Zwara's characterisation of degeneration in module varieties.
Given a 2-category $\twocat{K}$ admitting a calculus of bimodules, and a 2-monad T on it compatible with such calculus, we construct a 2-category $\twocat{L}$ with a 2-monad S on it such that: (1)S has the adjoint-pseudo-algebra property. (2)The 2-categories of pseudo-algebras of S and T are equivalent. Thus, coherent structures (pseudo-T-algebras) are transformed into universally characterised ones (adjoint-pseudo-S-algebras). The 2-category $\twocat{L}$ consists of lax algebras for the pseudo-monad induced by T on the bicategory of bimodules of $\twocat{K}$. We give an intrinsic characterisa…
We consider categories of relational structures that fully embed every category of universal algebras, and prove a partial characterisation of these in terms of an infinitary variant of the notion of nowhere density of Nešetřil and Ossona de Mendez. More precisely, we show that the Gaifman class of an algebraically universal category contains subdivided complete graphs of any infinite size, and establish that any monotone category satisfying this may be oriented to obtain an algebraically universal category. For the proof of the above, we also develop a categorical framework for relational gad…
We study categorical models for the unitless fragment of multiplicative linear logic. We find that the appropriate notion of model is a special kind of promonoidal category. Since the theory of promonoidal categories has not been developed very thoroughly, at least in the published literature, we need to develop it here. The most natural way to do this - and the simplest, once the (substantial) groundwork has been laid - is to consider promonoidal categories as an instance of the general theory of pseudomonoids in a monoidal bicategory. Accordingly, we describe and explain the notions of monoi…
We investigate the categories of weak maps associated to an algebraic weak factorisation system (AWFS) in the sense of Grandis-Tholen. For any AWFS on a category with an initial object, cofibrant replacement forms a comonad, and the category of (left) weak maps associated to the AWFS is by definition the Kleisli category of this comonad. We exhibit categories of weak maps as a kind of "homotopy category", that freely adjoins a section for every "acyclic fibration" (=right map) of the AWFS; and using this characterisation, we give an alternate description of categories of weak maps in terms of …
Module structures of an algebra on a fixed finite dimensional vector space form an algebraic variety. Isomorphism classes correspond to orbits of the action of an algebraic group on this variety and a module is a degeneration of another if it belongs to the Zariski closure of the orbit. Riedtmann and Zwara gave an algebraic characterisation of this concept in terms of the existence of short exact sequences. Jensen, Su and Zimmermann, as well as independently Yoshino, studied the natural generalisation of the Riedtmann-Zwara degeneration to triangulated categories. The definition has an intrins…
Let $A$ be a ring and $\M_A$ the category of $A$-modules. It is well known in module theory that for any $A $-bimodule $B$, $B$ is an $A$-ring if and only if the functor $-\otimes_A B: \M_A\to \M_A$ is a monad (or triple). Similarly, an $A $-bimodule $\C$ is an $A$-coring provided the functor $-\otimes_A\C:\M_A\to \M_A$ is a comonad (or cotriple). The related categories of modules (or algebras) of $-\otimes_A B$ and comodules (or coalgebras) of $-\otimes_A\C$ are well studied in the literature. On the other hand, the right adjoint endofunctors $\Hom_A(B,-)$ and $\Hom_A(\C,-)$ are a comonad and…
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…