arXiv subjects

Geoffrey Cruttwell

Publications and source records attributed to Geoffrey Cruttwell.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ehresmann connections in tangent categories

The theory of connections is at the very core of differential geometry. Discovered by Levi-Civita and Christoffel and later studied by Cartan, Koszul, and others, connections appear in their most general form under the name of Ehresmann connections. An Ehresmann connection consists of a splitting of the tangent bundle of a submersion into the vertical sub-bundle and a given horizontal distribution. In this paper, we generalize Ehresmann connection to a categorical setting called tangent categories. Initially introduced by Rosick\'y in 1984 and later generalized by Cockett and the first author in 2014, tangent categories provide a categorical framework to study geometry that extends well beyond smooth manifolds, including algebraic geometry and non-commutative geometry. In this paper we introduce and study Ehresmann connections in the context of tangent categories. We give various equivalent formulations in term of full and abstract connections and prove that they generalize Koszul connections. We also define parallel transport and curvature for such connections, and prove the structural equation and the Bianchi identity for the curvature.

math.CT↗

arXiv2025

Pullbacks in tangent categories and tangent display maps

In differential geometry, the existence of pullbacks is a delicate matter, since the category of smooth manifolds does not admit all of them. When pullbacks are required, often submersions are employed as an ideal class of maps which behaves well under this operation and the tangent bundle functor. This issue is reflected in tangent category theory, which aims to axiomatize the tangent bundle functor of differential geometry categorically. Key constructions such as connections, tangent fibrations, or reverse tangent categories require one to work with pullbacks preserved by the tangent bundle functor. In previous work, this issue has been left as a technicality and solved by introducing extra structure to carry around. This paper gives an alternative to this by focusing on a special class of maps in a tangent category called tangent display maps; such maps are well-behaved with respect to pullbacks and applications of the tangent functor. We develop some of the general theory of such maps, show how using them can simplify previous work in tangent categories, and show that in the tangent category of smooth manifolds, they are the same as the submersions. Finally, we consider a subclass of tangent display maps to define open subobjects in any tangent category, allowing one to build a canonical split restriction tangent category in which the original one naturally embeds.

math.CT↗

arXiv2023

Reverse Tangent Categories

Previous work has shown that reverse differential categories give an abstract setting for gradient-based learning of functions between Euclidean spaces. However, reverse differential categories are not suited to handle gradient-based learning for functions between more general spaces such as smooth manifolds. In this paper, we propose a setting to handle this, which we call reverse tangent categories: tangent categories with an involution operation for their differential bundles.

math.CT↗

arXiv2022

Monoidal Reverse Differential Categories

Cartesian reverse differential categories (CRDCs) are a recently defined structure which categorically model the reverse differentiation operations used in supervised learning. Here we define a related structure called a monoidal reverse differential category, prove important results about its relationship to CRDCs, and provide examples of both structures, including examples coming from models of quantum computation.

math.CT↗

arXiv2022

Double Fibrations

This paper defines double fibrations (fibrations of double categories) and describes their key examples and properties. In particular, it shows how double fibrations relate to existing fibrational notions such as monoidal fibrations and discrete double fibrations, proves a representation theorem for double fibrations, and shows how double fibrations are a type of internal fibration.

math.CT↗

arXiv2021

Categorical semantics of a simple differential programming language

With the increased interest in machine learning, and deep learning in particular, the use of automatic differentiation has become more wide-spread in computation. There have been two recent developments to provide the theoretical support for this types of structure. One approach, due to Abadi and Plotkin, provides a simple differential programming language. Another approach is the notion of a reverse differential category. In the present paper we bring these two approaches together. In particular, we show how an extension of reverse derivative categories models Abadi and Plotkin's language, and describe how this categorical model allows one to consider potential improvements to the operational semantics of the language.

math.CT↗

arXiv2019

Reverse derivative categories

The reverse derivative is a fundamental operation in machine learning and automatic differentiation. This paper gives a direct axiomatization of a category with a reverse derivative operation, in a similar style to that given by Cartesian differential categories for a forward derivative. Intriguingly, a category with a reverse derivative also has a forward derivative, but the converse is not true. In fact, we show explicitly what a forward derivative is missing: a reverse derivative is equivalent to a forward derivative with a dagger structure on its subcategory of linear maps. Furthermore, we show that these linear maps form an additively enriched category with dagger biproducts.

cs.LO↗