Continuous Functors and Duality

Let be an associative ring with identity, and let be the category of left unitary -modules. A complete characterization of continuous additive co- and contravariant functors is given. Such functors are either representable, or equivalent to a tensor product, or trivial ones. The class of categories that are dual to and, therefore, are equivalent to the category of compact right -modules is constructed by purely algebraic means. A canonical category is singled out in this class. A purely algebraic structure that is equivalent to the topology-algebraic structure of compact right -modules is constructed. Algebraic analogs of connection and complete disconnection are given. Bibliography: 6 titles.