Hopf measuring comonoids and enrichment

Abstract

We study the existence of universal measuring comonoids $P(A,B)$ for a pair of monoids $A$, $B$ in a braided monoidal closed category, and the associated enrichment of a category of monoids over the monoidal category of comonoids. In symmetric categories, we show that if $A$ is a bimonoid and $B$ is a commutative monoid, then $P(A,B)$ is a bimonoid; in addition, if $A$ is a cocommutative Hopf monoid then $P(A,B)$ always is Hopf. If $A$ is a Hopf monoid, not necessarily cocommutative, then $P(A,B)$ is Hopf if the fundamental theorem of comodules holds; to prove this we give an alternative description of the dualizable $P(A,B)$-comodules and use the theory of Hopf (co)monads. We explore the examples of universal measuring comonoids in vector spaces and graded spaces.