Comonadic base change for enriched categories

Abstract

For our concepts of change of base and comonadicity, we work in the general context of the tricategory $\mathrm{Caten}$ whose objects are bicategories $\mathscr{V}$ and whose morphisms are categories enriched on two sides. For example, for any monoidal comonad $G$ on a cocomplete closed monoidal category $\mathscr{C}$, the forgetful functor $U : \mathscr{C}^G\to \mathscr{C}$ is comonadic when regarded as a morphism in $\mathrm{Caten}$ between one-object bicategories. We show that the forgetful pseudofunctor $\mathscr{U}:\mathscr{V}^\mathscr{G}\rightarrow \mathscr{V}$ from the bicategory of Eilenberg-Moore coalgebras for a comonad $\mathscr{G}$ on $\mathscr{V}$ in $\mathrm{Caten}$ induces a change of base pseudofunctor $\widetilde{\mathscr{U}}:\mathscr{V}^\mathscr{G}\text{-}\mathrm{Mod}\rightarrow \mathscr{V}\text{-}\mathrm{Mod}$ which is comonadic in a bigger version of $\mathrm{Caten}$. We define Hopfness for such a comonad $\mathscr{G}$ and prove that having that property implies $\mathscr{U}$ creates left (Kan) extensions in the bicategory $\mathscr{V}^\mathscr{G}$. We provide conditions under which Hopfness carries over from $\mathscr{G}$ to the comonad $\widetilde{\mathscr{G}}=\widetilde{\mathscr{U}}\circ \widetilde{\mathscr{R}}$ generated by the adjunction $\widetilde{\mathscr{U}}\dashv \widetilde{\mathscr{R}}$. This has implications for characterizing the absolute colimit completion of $\mathscr{V}^\mathscr{G}$-categories.