Coherence for Product Monoids and their Actions

Let and be two monoids (algebras) in a monoidal category . Further let be a distributive law in the sense of [J. Beck, Lect. Notes Math., 80:119–140, 1969]; naturally yields a monoid . Consider a word in the symbols , , and . The first coherence theorem proved in this paper asserts that all morphisms coincide in , provided they arise as composites of morphisms which are -products of ’s ‘canonical’ structure morphisms, and of , , , , , , , and . Assume now that an object is endowed with both an -object structure , and an -object structure . Further assume that these two structures are compatible, in the sense that they naturally yield an -object . Let be a word in , , , and , which contains a single instance of , in the rightmost position. The second coherence theorem states that all morphisms coincide in , provided they arise as composites of morphisms which are -products of ’s ‘canonical’ structure morphisms, and of , , , , , , , , , and .