We extend the calculus of relations to embed a regular category A into a family of pseudo-abelian tensor categories T(A,d) depending on a degree function d. Under the condition that all objects of A have only finitely many subobjects, our main results are as follows:
1. Let N be the maximal proper tensor ideal of T(A,d). We show that T(A,d)/N is semisimple provided that A is exact and Mal'cev. Thereby, we produce many new semisimple, hence abelian, tensor categories.
2. Using lattice theory, we give a simple numerical criterion for the vanishing of N.
3. We determine all degree functions for which T(A,d) is Tannakian. As a result, we are able to interpolate the representation categories of many series of profinite groups such as the symmetric groups S_n, the hyperoctahedral groups S_n\semidir Z_2^n, or the general linear groups GL(n,F_q) over a fixed finite field.
This paper generalizes work of Deligne, who first constructed the interpolating category for the symmetric groups S_n. It also extends (and provides proofs for) a previous paper math.CT/0605126 on the special case of abelian categories.
We study abelian envelopes for pseudo-tensor categories with the property that every object in the envelope is a quotient of an object in the pseudo-tensor category. We establish an intrinsic criterion on pseudo-tensor categories for the existence of an abelian envelope satisfying this quotient property. This allows us to interpret the extension of scalars and Deligne tensor product of tensor categories as abelian envelopes, and to enlarge the class of tensor categories for which all extensions of scalars and tensor products are known to remain tensor categories. For an affine group scheme G, …
We prove general results about completeness of cotorsion theories and existence of covers and envelopes in locally presentable abelian categories, extending the well-established theory for module categories and Grothendieck categories. These results are then applied to the categories of contramodules over topological rings, which provide examples and counterexamples.
An envelope in a category is a construction that generalizes the operations of "exterior completion", like completion of a locally convex space, or Stone-Čech compactification of a topological space, or universal enveloping algebra of a Lie algebra. Dually, a refinement generalizes operations of "interior enrichment", like bornologification (or saturation) of a locally convex space, or simply connected covering of a Lie group. In this paper we define envelopes and refinements in abstract categories and discuss the conditions under which these constructions exist and are functors. The aim of th…
We show that each rigid monoidal category A over a field defines a family of universal tensor categories, which together classify all faithful monoidal functors from A to tensor categories. Each of the universal tensor categories classifies monoidal functors of a given 'homological kernel' and can be realised as a sheaf category, not necessarily on A. This yields a theory of 'local abelian envelope' which completes the notion of monoidal abelian envelopes.
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 give several criteria to decide whether a given tensor category is the abelian envelope of a fixed symmetric monoidal category. As a main result we prove that the category of finite-dimensional representations of a semisimple simply connected algebraic group is the abelian envelope of the category of tilting modules. Benson and Etingof conjectured that a certain limit of finite symmetric tensor categories is tensor equivalent to the finite dimensional representations of $SL_2$ in characteristic $2$. We use our results on the abelian envelopes to prove this conjecture and its variants for an…
We give a 3-universal property for the Karoubi envelope of a 2-category. Using this, we show that the 3-categories of finite semisimple 2-categories (as introduced in arXiv:1812.11933) and of multifusion categories are equivalent.
In 1966, John Isbell introduced a construction on categories which he termed the "couple category" but which has since come to be known as the Isbell envelope. The Isbell envelope, which combines the ideas of contravariant and covariant presheaves, has found applications in category theory, logic, and differential geometry. We clarify its meaning by exhibiting the assignation sending a locally small category to its Isbell envelope as the action on objects of a pseudomonad on the 2-category of locally small categories; this is the Isbell monad of the title. We characterise the pseudoalgebras of…
$2$-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 prove 2-categorical conservativity for any {0,T}-free fragment of MALL over its corresponding intuitionistic version: that is, that the universal map from a closed symmetric monoidal category to the *-autonomous category that it freely generates is fully faithful, and similarly for other doctrines. This implies that linear logics and graphical calculi for *-autonomous categories can also be interpreted canonically in closed symmetric monoidal categories. In particular, every closed symmetric monoidal category can be fully embedded in a *-autonomous category, preserving both tensor products …
We propose definitions of regular and exact (virtual) double categories, proving a number of results which parallel many basic results in the theory of regular and exact categories. We show that any regular virtual double category admits a factorization system which generalizes the factorization of a functor between categories into a bijective-on-objects functor followed by a fully-faithful functor. Finally, we show that our definition of exact double category is equivalent to an axiom proposed by Wood, and very closely related to the "tight Kleisli objects" studied by Garner and Shulman.
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 $\mathbb{C}$.
Regular logic is the fragment of first order logic generated by $=$, $\top$, $\wedge$, and $\exists$. A key feature of this logic is that it is the minimal fragment required to express composition of binary relations; another is that it is the internal logic of regular categories. The link between these two facts is that in any regular category, one may construct a notion of binary relation using jointly-monic spans; this results in what is known as the bicategory of relations of the regular category. In this paper we provide a direct axiomatization of bicategories of relations, which we term …
We construct an exact completion for regular categories enriched in the cartesian closed category $\mathsf{Pos}$ of partially ordered sets and monotone functions by employing a suitable calculus of relations. We then characterize the embedding of any regular category into its completion and use this to obtain examples of concrete categories which arise as such completions. In particular, we prove that the exact completion in this enriched sense of both the categories of Stone and Priestley spaces is the category of compact ordered spaces of L. Nachbin. Finally, we consider the relationship bet…
We introduce two applications of polygraphs to categorification problems. We compute first, from a coherent presentation of an $n$-category, a coherent presentation of its Karoubi envelope. For this, we extend the construction of Karoubi envelope to $n$-polygraphs and linear $(n,n-1)$-polygraphs. The second problem treated in this paper is the construction of Grothendieck decategorifications for $(n,n-1)$-polygraphs. This construction yields a rewriting system presenting for example algebras categorified by a linear monoidal category. We finally link quasi-convergence of such rewriting systems…
We show that the quotient of a Hom-finite triangulated category C by the kernel of the functor Hom(T, -), where T is a rigid object, is preabelian. We further show that the class of regular morphisms in the quotient admit a calculus of left and right fractions. It follows that the Gabriel-Zisman localisation of the quotient at the class of regular morphisms is abelian. We show that it is equivalent to the category of finite dimensional modules over the endomorphism algebra of T in C.
Relative realizability toposes satisfy a universal property that involves regular functors to other categories. We use this universal property to define what relative realizability categories are, when based on other categories than of the topos of sets. This paper explains the property and gives a construction for relative realizability categories that works for arbitrary base Heyting categories. The universal property shows us some new geometric morphisms to relative realizability toposes too.
We examine the analogues for the respective categories of locales of two well-known results about regularity and effectiveness of some categories of spaces. We show that the category of compact regular locales is effective regular (=Barr-exact). We also show that the category of compactly generated Hausdorff locales is regular, provided that it is coreflective within Hausdorff locales. We do not appeal to the existence of points (which would render the two results trivial) but rely on the treatment of the subject by methods that are valid in the internal logic of a topos. On the course to the …
The paper is devoted to a kind of `very non-abelian' spectral categories. Under strong conditions on a category $\mathcal{X}$, we prove, among other things, that, for a given faithful localization $\mathcal{C}\to\mathcal{X}$, we have canonical equivalences $\mathrm{Spec}(\mathcal{C})\sim\mathcal{X}\sim(\mathrm{Category\,\,of\,\,injective\,\,objects\,\,in}\,\, \mathcal{C})$, and that $\mathcal{C}$ has natural injective envelopes.
We define the concept of a regular object with respect to another object in an arbitrary category. We present basic properties of regular objects and we study this concept in the special cases of abelian categories and locally finitely generated Grothendieck categories. Applications are given for categories of comodules over a coalgebra and for categories of graded modules, and a link to the theory of generalized inverses of matrices is presented. Some of the techniques we use are new, since dealing with arbitrary categories allows us to pass to the dual category.
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 propose a method of constructing abelian envelopes of symmetric rigid monoidal Karoubian categories over an algebraically closed field $\bf k$. If ${\rm char}({\bf k})=p>0$, we use this method to construct generalizations ${\rm Ver}_{p^n}$, ${\rm Ver}_{p^n}^+$ of the incompressible abelian symmetric tensor categories defined in arXiv:1807.05549 for $p=2$ and by Gelfand-Kazhdan and Georgiev-Mathieu for $n=1$. Namely, ${\rm Ver}_{p^n}$ is the abelian envelope of the quotient of the category of tilting modules for $SL_2(\bf k)$ by the $n$-th Steinberg module, and ${\rm Ver}_{p^n}^+$ is its sub…
We introduce the extension groups between atoms in an abelian category. For a locally noetherian Grothendieck category, the localizing subcategories closed under injective envelopes are characterized in terms of those extension groups. We also introduce the virtual duals of the extension groups between atoms to measure the global dimension of the category. A new topological property of atom spectra is revealed and it is used to relate the projective dimensions of atoms with the Krull-Gabriel dimensions. As a byproduct of the topological observation, we show that there exists a spectral space t…
To every group $G$ we associate a linear monoidal category $\mathcal{P}\mathit{ar}(G)$ that we call a group partition category. We give explicit bases for the morphism spaces and also an efficient presentation of the category in terms of generators and relations. We then define an embedding of $\mathcal{P}\mathit{ar}(G)$ into the group Heisenberg category associated to $G$. This embedding intertwines the natural actions of both categories on modules for wreath products of $G$. Finally, we prove that the additive Karoubi envelope of $\mathcal{P}\mathit{ar}(G)$ is equivalent to a wreath product …
We show how the theory of (dual) strongly relative Rickart objects may be employed in order to study strongly relative regular objects and (dual) strongly relative Baer objects in abelian categories. For each of them, we prove general properties, we analyze the behaviour with respect to (co)products, and we study the transfer via functors. We also give applications to Grothendieck categories, (graded) module categories and comodule categories.
In a regular category $\mathbb E$, the direct image along a regular epimorphism $f$ of a preorder is not a preorder in general. In $Set$, its best preorder approximation is then its cocartesian image above $f$. In a regular category, the existence of such a cocartesian image above $f$ of a preorder $S$ is actually equivalent to the existence of the supremum $R[f]\vee S$ among the preorders. We investigate here some conditions ensuring the existence of these cocartesian images or equivalently of these suprema. They applied to two very dissimilar contexts: any topos $\mathbb E$ with suprema of c…
The Noether isomorphism theorems and the Zassenhaus Lemma from group theory have a non-pointed version in a suitable categorical context first considered by W. Tholen in his PhD thesis. This article leads to a unification of these results with the ones in the pointed categorical context considered by O. Wyler, by working in the framework of star-regular categories introduced by M. Gran, Z. Janelidze and A. Ursini. Some concrete examples of categories where these results hold are examined in detail.
We consider the ordinary category Span(C) of (isomorphism classes of) spans of morphisms in a category C with finite limits as needed, composed horizontally via pullback, and give a general criterion for a quotient of Span(C) to be an allegory. In particular, when C carries a pullback-stable, but not necessarily proper, (E, M)-factorization system, we establish a quotient category Span_E(C) that is isomorphic to the category Rel_M(C) of M-relations in C, and show that it is a (unitary and tabular) allegory precisely when M is a class of monomorphisms in C. Without this restriction, one can sti…
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…
We propose a new approach to S-protomodular categories in the sense of D. Bourn, N. Martins-Ferreira, A. Montoli, and M. Sobral. Instead of points (=split epimorphisms) it uses generalized points, which we define as composable pairs of morphisms whose composites are pullback stable regular epimorphisms. This approach is convenient in describing the connection between split and regular Schreier epimorphisms of monoids.
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…
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 $π: Pt_{\mathbb{C}} \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ …
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.
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…
K. S. S. Nambooripad intoduced nornal categories to enable to describe the structure of regular semigroups fully. In this paper we describe the ideal categories of the regular semigroup $OX_n,$ of non-invertible order-preserving transformations on a finite chain $X_n=\{1\leq 2\leq \cdots \leq n \}$ which are normal categories. Further it is shown that the principal left ideal category of $OX_n$ as the power set category $P_o(X_n)$ of $OX_n$ and the principal right ideal category as $\prod_o(X_n)$ category of ordered partitions of $X_n$ and described the cone semigroup $T\mathscr L(OX_n)$ and p…
