Elementary equivalences and accessible functors

Abstract

We introduce the notion of $\lambda$-equivalence and $\lambda$-embeddings of objects in suitable categories. This notion specializes to $L_{\infty\lambda}$-equivalence and $L_{\infty\lambda}$-elementary embedding for categories of structures in a language of arity less than $\lambda$, and interacts well with functors and $\lambda$-directed colimits. We recover and extend results of Feferman and Eklof on "local functors" without fixing a language in advance. This is convenient for formalizing Lefschetz's principle in algebraic geometry, which was one of the main applications of the work of Eklof.