Traces in symmetric monoidal categories

The purpose of this expository note is to describe duality and trace in a symmetric monoidal category, along with important properties (including naturality and functoriality), and to give as many examples as possible. Among other things, this note is intended as background for the generalizations to the context of bicategories and indexed monoidal categories.     

Abelian categories of modules over a (lax) monoidal functor

Crane and Yetter (Deformations of (bi)tensor categories, Cahier de Topologie et Géometrie Differentielle Catégorique, 1998) introduced a deformation theory for monoidal categories. The related deformation theory for monoidal functors introduced by Yetter (in: E. Getzler, M. Kapranov (Eds.), Higher Category Theory, American Mathematical Society Contemporary Mathematics, Vol. 230, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1998, pp. 117-134.) is a proper generalization of Gerstenhaber's deformation theory for associative algebras (Ann. Math. 78(2) (1963) 267; 79(1) (1964) 59; in: M. Hazewinkel, M. Gerstenhaber (Eds.), Deformation Theory of Algebras and Structure and Applications, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988, pp. 11-264). In the present paper we solidify the analogy between lax monoidal functors and associative algebras by showing that under suitable conditions, categories of functors with an action of a lax monoidal functor are abelian categories. The deformation complex of a monoidal functor is generalized to an analogue of the Hochschild complex with coefficients in a bimodule, and the deformation complex of a monoidal natural transformation is shown to be a special case. It is shown further that the cohomology of a monoidal functor F with coefficients in an F,F-bimodule is given by right derived functors.     

Weak bimonoids in duoidal categories

Weak bimonoids in duoidal categories are introduced. They provide a common generalization of bimonoids in duoidal categories and of weak bimonoids in braided monoidal categories. Under the assumption that idempotent morphisms in the base category split, they are shown to induce weak bimonads (in four symmetric ways). As a consequence, they have four separable Frobenius base (co)monoids, two in each of the underlying monoidal categories. Hopf modules over weak bimonoids are defined by weakly lifting the induced comonad to the Eilenberg–Moore category of the induced monad. Making appropriate assumptions on the duoidal category in question, the fundamental theorem of Hopf modules is proven which says that the category of modules over one of the base monoids is equivalent to the category of Hopf modules if and only if a Galois-type comonad morphism is an isomorphism.     

Internal Kleisli categories

A construction of Kleisli objects in 2-categories of noncartesian internal categories or categories internal to monoidal categories is presented.     

Braided bosonization and inhomogeneous quantum groups

We consider quasitriangular Hopf algebras in braided tensor categories introduced by Majid. It is known that a quasitriangular Hopf algebra H in a braided monoidal category C induces a braiding in a full monoidal subcategory of the category of H-modules in C. Within this subcategory, a braided version of the bosonization theorem with respect to the category C will be proved. An example of braided monoidal categories with quasitriangular structure deviating from the ordinary case of symmetric tensor categories of vector spaces is provided by certain braided supersymmetric tensor categories. Braided inhomogeneous quantum groups like the dilaton free q-Poincaré group are explicit applications.Supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through a research fellowship.     

Classifying spaces for braided monoidal categories and lax diagrams of bicategories

This work contributes to clarifying several relationships between certain higher categorical structures and the homotopy type of their classifying spaces. Bicategories (in particular monoidal categories) have well-understood simple geometric realizations, and we here deal with homotopy types represented by lax diagrams of bicategories, that is, lax functors to the tricategory of bicategories. In this paper, it is proven that, when a certain bicategorical Grothendieck construction is performed on a lax diagram of bicategories, then the classifying space of the resulting bicategory can be thought of as the homotopy colimit of the classifying spaces of the bicategories that arise from the initial input data given by the lax diagram. This result is applied to produce bicategories whose classifying space has a double loop space with the same homotopy type, up to group completion, as the underlying category of any given (non-necessarily strict) braided monoidal category. Specifically, it is proven that these double delooping spaces, for categories enriched with a braided monoidal structure, can be explicitly realized by means of certain genuine simplicial sets characteristically associated to any braided monoidal categories, which we refer to as their (Street's) geometric nerves.     

Hopf monads

We introduce and study Hopf monads on autonomous categories (i.e., monoidal categories with duals). Hopf monads generalize Hopf algebras to a non-braided (and non-linear) setting. In particular, any monoidal adjunction between autonomous categories gives rise to a Hopf monad. We extend many fundamental results of the theory of Hopf algebras (such as the decomposition of Hopf modules, the existence of integrals, Maschke's criterium of semisimplicity, etc.) to Hopf monads. We also introduce and study quasitriangular and ribbon Hopf monads (again defined in a non-braided setting).     

Higher categories,strings, cubes and simplex equations

This survey of categorical structures, occurring naturally in mathematics, physics and computer science, deals with monoidal categories; various structures in monoidal categories; free monoidal structures; Penrose string notation; 2-dimensional categorical structures; the simplex equations of field theory and statistical mechanics; higher-order categories and computads; the (v,d)-cube equations; the simplex equations as cubical cocycle equations; and, cubes, braids and higher braids.     

The homotopy category of pseudofunctors and translation cohomology

We develop the obstruction theory of the 2-category of abelian track categories, pseudofunctors and pseudonatural transformations by using the cohomology of categories. The obstructions are defined in Baues-Wirsching cohomology groups. We introduce translation cohomology to classify endomorphisms in the 2-category of abelian track categories. In a sequel to this paper we will show, under certain conditions which are satisfied by all homotopy categories, that a translation cohomology class determines the exact triangles of a triangulated category.     

Hopf monads on monoidal categories

We define Hopf monads on an arbitrary monoidal category, extending the definition given in Bruguières and Virelizier (2007) [5] for monoidal categories with duals. A Hopf monad is a bimonad (or opmonoidal monad) whose fusion operators are invertible. This definition can be formulated in terms of Hopf adjunctions, which are comonoidal adjunctions with an invertibility condition. On a monoidal category with internal Homs, a Hopf monad is a bimonad admitting a left and a right antipode.Hopf monads generalize Hopf algebras to the non-braided setting. They also generalize Hopf algebroids (which are linear Hopf monads on a category of bimodules admitting a right adjoint). We show that any finite tensor category is the category of finite-dimensional modules over a Hopf algebroid.Any Hopf algebra in the center of a monoidal category C gives rise to a Hopf monad on C. The Hopf monads so obtained are exactly the augmented Hopf monads. More generally if a Hopf monad T is a retract of a Hopf monad P, then P is a cross product of T by a Hopf algebra of the center of the category of T-modules (generalizing the Radford–Majid bosonization of Hopf algebras).We show that the comonoidal comonad of a Hopf adjunction is canonically represented by a cocommutative central coalgebra. As a corollary, we obtain an extension of Sweedler?s Hopf module decomposition theorem to Hopf monads (in fact to the weaker notion of pre-Hopf monad).     

On some classes of lazy cocycles and categorical structures

We study some classes of lazy cocycles, called pure (respectively neat), together with their categorical counterparts, entwined (respectively strongly entwined) monoidal categories.     

Universal topological algebra needs closed topological categories

It is shown that a development of universal topological algebra, based in the obvious way on the category of topological spaces, leads in general to a pathological situation. The pathology disappears when the base category is changed to a cartesian closed topological category or to a topological category endowed with a compatible closed symmetric monoidal structure, provided that in the latter case, the algebraic operations are expressed in terms of monoidal powers rather than the usual cartesian powers. With such base categories, universal topological algebra becomes virtually as well-behaved as ordinary (setbased) universal algebra.     

Operads within Monoidal Pseudo Algebras

A general notion of operad is given, which includes: (1) the operads that arose in algebraic topology in the 1970s to characterise loop spaces. (2) the higher operads of Michael Batanin [4] (3) braided and symmetric analogues of Batanin’s operads which are likely to be important in the study of weakly symmetric higher dimensional monoidal categories. The framework of this paper, links together two-dimensional monad theory, operads, and higher dimensional algebra, in a natural way.     

Strong cofibrations and fibrations in enriched categories

We define strong cofibrations and fibrations in suitably enriched categories using the relative homotopy extension resp. lifting property. We prove a general pairing result, which for topological spaces specializes to the well-known pushout-product theorem for cofibrations. Strong cofibrations and fibrations give rise to cofibration and fibration categories in the sense of homotopical algebra. We discuss various examples; in particular, we deduce that the category of chain complexes with chain equivalences and the category of categories with equivalences are symmetric monoidal proper closed model categories. Eine überarbeitete Fassung ging am 5. 12. 2001 ein     

Categories with sums and right distributive tensor product

Models for parallel and concurrent processes lead quite naturally to the study of monoidal categories (Inform. Comput. 88 (2) (1990) 105). In particular a category Tree of trees, equipped with a non-symmetric tensor product, interpreted as a concatenation, seems to be very useful to represent (local) behavior of non-deterministic agents able to communicate (Enriched Categories for Local and Interaction Calculi, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 283, Springer, Berlin, 1987, pp. 57-70). The category Tree is also provided with a coproduct (corresponding to choice between behaviors) and the tensor product is only partially distributive w.r.t. it, in order to preserve non-determinism. Such a category can be properly defined as the category of the (finite) symmetric categories on a free monoid, when this free monoid is considered as a 2-category. The monoidal structure is inherited from the concatenation in the monoid. In this paper we prove that for every alphabet A, Tree(A), the category of finite A-labeled trees is equivalent to the free category which is generated by A and enjoys the afore-mentioned properties. The related category Beh(A), corresponding to global behaviors is also proven to be equivalent to the free category which is generated by A and enjoys a smaller set of properties.     

Rings, modules, and algebras in infinite loop space theory

We give a new construction of the algebraic K-theory of small permutative categories that preserves multiplicative structure, and therefore allows us to give a unified treatment of rings, modules, and algebras in both the input and output. This requires us to define multiplicative structure on the category of small permutative categories. The framework we use is the concept of multicategory (elsewhere also called colored operad), a generalization of symmetric monoidal category that precisely captures the multiplicative structure we have present at all stages of the construction. Our method ends up in the Hovey-Shipley-Smith category of symmetric spectra, with an intermediate stop at a category of functors out of a particular wreath product.     

Exponentiation in V-categories

For a Heyting algebra V which, as a category, is monoidal closed, we obtain characterizations of exponentiable objects and morphisms in the category of V-categories and apply them to some well-known examples. In the case these characterizations of exponentiable morphisms and objects in the categories (P)Met of (pre)metric spaces and non-expansive maps show in particular that exponentiable metric spaces are exactly the almost convex metric spaces, while exponentiable complete metric spaces are the complete totally convex ones.     

An internal language for autonomous categories

We present an internal language for symmetric monoidal closed (autonomous) categories analogous to the typed lambda calculus as an internal language for cartesian closed categories. The language we propose is the term assignment to the multiplicative fragment of Intuitionistic Linear Logic, which possesses exactly the right structure for an autonomous theory. We prove that this language is an internal language and show as an application the coherence theorem of Kelly and Mac Lane, which becomes straightforward to state and prove. Finally, we extend the language with the natural numbers and show that this corresponds to a weak Natural Numbers Object in an autonomous category.