Diagrammatic characterisation of enriched absolute colimits
We provide a diagrammatic criterion for the existence of an absolute colimit in the context of enriched category theory.
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arXiv subjects
Richard Garner
Publications and source records attributed to Richard Garner.
Combinatorial structure of type dependency
We give an account of the basic combinatorial structure underlying the notion of type dependency. We do so by considering the category of all dependent sequent calculi, and exhibiting it as the category of algebras for a monad on a presheaf category. The objects of the presheaf category encode the basic judgements of a dependent sequent calculus, while the action of the monad encodes the deduction rules; so by giving an explicit description of the monad, we obtain an explicit account of the combinatorics of type dependency. We find that this combinatorics is controlled by a particular kind of decorated ordered tree, familiar from computer science and from innocent game semantics. Furthermore, we find that the monad at issue is of a particularly well-behaved kind: it is local right adjoint in the sense of Street--Weber. In future work, we will use this fact to describe nerves for dependent type theories, and to study the coherence problem for dependent type theory using the tools of two-dimensional monad theory.
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Topological = total
A notion of central importance in categorical topology is that of topological functor. A faithful functor E -> B is called topological if it admits cartesian liftings of all (possibly large) families of arrows; the basic example is the forgetful functor Top -> Set. A topological functor E -> 1 is the same thing as a (large) complete preorder, and the general topological functor E -> B is intuitively thought of as a complete preorder relative to B. We make this intuition precise by considering an enrichment base Q_B such that Q_B-enriched categories are faithful functors into B, and show that, in this context, a faithful functor is topological if and only if it is total (=totally cocomplete) in the sense of Street--Walters. We also consider the MacNeille completion of a faithful functor to a topological one, first described by Herrlich, and show that it may be obtained as an instance of Isbell's generalised notion of MacNeille completion for enriched categories.
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Lawvere theories, finitary monads and Cauchy-completion
We consider the equivalence of Lawvere theories and finitary monads on Set from the perspective of Endf(Set)-enriched category theory, where Endf(Set) is the category of finitary endofunctors of Set. We identify finitary monads with one-object Endf(Set)-categories, and ordinary categories admitting finite powers (i.e., n-fold products of each object with itself) with Endf(Set)-categories admitting a certain class Phi of absolute colimits; we then show that, from this perspective, the passage from a finitary monad to the associated Lawvere theory is given by completion under Phi-colimits. We also account for other phenomena from the enriched viewpoint: the equivalence of the algebras for a finitary monad with the models of the corresponding Lawvere theory; the functorial semantics in arbitrary categories with finite powers; and the existence of left adjoints to algebraic functors.
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Skew-monoidal categories and the Catalan simplicial set
The basic data for a skew-monoidal category are the same as for a monoidal category, except that the constraint morphisms are no longer required to be invertible. The constraints are given a specific orientation and satisfy Mac Lane's five axioms. Whilst recent applications justify the use of skew-monoidal structure, they do not give an intrinsic justification for the form the structure takes (the orientation of the constraints and the axioms that they satisfy). This paper provides a perspective on skew-monoidal structure which, amongst other things, makes it quite apparent why this particular choice is a natural one. To do this, we use the Catalan simplicial set C. It turns out to be quite easy to describe: it is the nerve of the monoidal poset (2, v, 0) and has a Catalan number of simplices at each dimension (hence the name). Our perspective is that C classifies skew-monoidal structures in the sense that simplicial maps from C into a suitably-defined nerve of Cat are precisely skew-monoidal categories. More generally, skew monoidales in a monoidal bicategory K are classified by maps from C into the simplicial nerve of K.
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Two-dimensional regularity and exactness
We define notions of regularity and (Barr-)exactness for 2-categories. In fact, we define three notions of regularity and exactness, each based on one of the three canonical ways of factorising a functor in Cat: as (surjective on objects, injective on objects and fully faithful), as (bijective on objects, fully faithful), and as (bijective on objects and full, faithful). The correctness of our notions is justified using the theory of lex colimits introduced by Lack and the second author. Along the way, we develop an abstract theory of regularity and exactness relative to a kernel--quotient factorisation, extending earlier work of Street and others.
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Restriction categories as enriched categories
Restriction categories were introduced to provide an axiomatic setting for the study of partially defined mappings; they are categories equipped with an operation called restriction which assigns to every morphism an endomorphism of its domain, to be thought of as the partial identity that is defined to just the same degree as the original map. In this paper, we show that restriction categories can be identified with \emph{enriched categories} in the sense of Kelly for a suitable enrichment base. By varying that base appropriately, we are also able to capture the notions of join and range restriction category in terms of enriched category theory.
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On the axioms for adhesive and quasiadhesive categories
A category is adhesive if it has all pullbacks, all pushouts along monomorphisms, and all exactness conditions between pullbacks and pushouts along monomorphisms which hold in a topos. This condition can be modified by considering only pushouts along regular monomorphisms, or by asking only for the exactness conditions which hold in a quasitopos. We prove four characterization theorems dealing with adhesive categories and their variants.
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Remarks on exactness notions pertaining to pushouts
We call a finitely complete category diexact if every Mal'cev relation admits a pushout which is stable under pullback and itself a pullback. We prove three results relating to diexact categories: firstly, that a category is a pretopos if and only if it is diexact with a strict initial object; secondly, that a category is diexact if and only if it is Barr-exact, and every pair of monomorphisms admits a pushout which is stable and a pullback; and thirdly, that a small category with finite limits and pushouts of Mal'cev spans is diexact if and only if it admits a full structure-preserving embedding into a Grothendieck topos.
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Grothendieck quasitoposes
A full reflective subcategory E of a presheaf category [C*,Set] is the category of sheaves for a topology j on C if and only if the reflection preserves finite limits. Such an E is called a Grothendieck topos. More generally, one can consider two topologies, j contained in k, and the category of sheaves for j which are separated for k. The categories E of this form, for some C, j, and k, are the Grothendieck quasitoposes of the title, previously studied by Borceux and Pedicchio, and include many examples of categories of spaces. They also include the category of concrete sheaves for a concrete site. We show that a full reflective subcategory E of [C*,Set] arises in this way for some j and k if and only if the reflection preserves monomorphisms as well as pullbacks over elements of E.
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Lex colimits
Many kinds of categorical structure require the existence of finite limits, of colimits of some specified type, and of "exactness" conditions between the finite limits and the specified colimits. Some examples are the notions of regular, or Barr-exact, or lextensive, or coherent, or adhesive category. We introduce a general notion of exactness, of which each of the structures listed above, and others besides, are particular instances. The notion can be understood as a form of cocompleteness "in the lex world" -- more precisely, in the 2-category of finitely complete categories and finite-limit preserving functors.
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On semiflexible, flexible and pie algebras
We introduce the notion of pie algebra for a 2-monad, these bearing the same relationship to the flexible and semiflexible algebras as pie limits do to flexible and semiflexible ones. We see that in many cases, the pie algebras are precisely those "free at the level of objects" in a suitable sense; so that, for instance, a strict monoidal category is pie just when its underlying monoid of objects is free. Pie algebras are contrasted with flexible and semiflexible algebras via a series of characterisations of each class; particular attention is paid to the case of pie, flexible and semiflexible weights, these being characterised in terms of the behaviour of the corresponding weighted limit functors.
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Ionads
The notion of Grothendieck topos may be considered as a generalisation of that of topological space, one in which the points of the space may have non-trivial automorphisms. However, the analogy is not precise, since in a topological space, it is the points which have conceptual priority over the open sets, whereas in a topos it is the other way around. Hence a topos is more correctly regarded as a generalised locale, than as a generalised space. In this article we introduce the notion of ionad, which stands in the same relationship to a topological space as a (Grothendieck) topos does to a locale. We develop basic aspects of their theory and discuss their relationship with toposes.
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Topological and simplicial models of identity types
In this paper we construct new categorical models for the identity types of Martin-Löf type theory, in the categories Top of topological spaces and SSet of simplicial sets. We do so building on earlier work of Awodey and Warren, which has suggested that a suitable environment for the interpretation of identity types should be a category equipped with a weak factorisation system in the sense of Bousfield--Quillen. It turns out that this is not quite enough for a sound model, due to some subtle coherence issues concerned with stability under substitution; and so our first task is to introduce a slightly richer structure---which we call a homotopy-theoretic model of identity types---and to prove that this is sufficient for a sound interpretation. Now, although both Top and SSet are categories endowed with a weak factorisation system---and indeed, an entire Quillen model structure---exhibiting the additional structure required for a homotopy-theoretic model is quite hard to do. However, the categories we are interested in share a number of common features, and abstracting away from these leads us to introduce the notion of a path object category. This is a relatively simple axiomatic framework, which is nonetheless sufficiently strong to allow the construction of homotopy-theoretic models. Now by exhibiting suitable path object structures on Top and SSet, we endow those categories with the structure of a homotopy-theoretic model: and in this way, obtain the desired topological and simplicial models of identity types.
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An abstract view on syntax with sharing
The notion of term graph encodes a refinement of inductively generated syntax in which regard is paid to the the sharing and discard of subterms. Inductively generated syntax has an abstract expression in terms of initial algebras for certain endofunctors on the category of sets, which permits one to go beyond the set-based case, and speak of inductively generated syntax in other settings. In this paper we give a similar abstract expression to the notion of term graph. Aspects of the concrete theory are redeveloped in this setting, and applications beyond the realm of sets discussed.
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Homomorphisms of higher categories
We describe a construction that to each algebraically specified notion of higher-dimensional category associates a notion of homomorphism which preserves the categorical structure only up to weakly invertible higher cells. The construction is such that these homomorphisms admit a strictly associative and unital composition. We give two applications of this construction. The first is to tricategories; and here we do not obtain the trihomomorphisms defined by Gordon, Power and Street, but only something equivalent in a suitable sense. The second is to Batanin's weak omega-categories.
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On the strength of dependent products in the type theory of Martin-Löf
One may formulate the dependent product types of Martin-Löf type theory either in terms of abstraction and application operators like those for the lambda-calculus; or in terms of introduction and elimination rules like those for the other constructors of type theory. It is known that the latter rules are at least as strong as the former: we show that they are in fact strictly stronger. We also show, in the presence of the identity types, that the elimination rule for dependent products--which is a "higher-order" inference rule in the sense of Schroeder-Heister--can be reformulated in a first-order manner. Finally, we consider the principle of function extensionality in type theory, which asserts that two elements of a dependent product type which are pointwise propositionally equal, are themselves propositionally equal. We demonstrate that the usual formulation of this principle fails to verify a number of very natural propositional equalities; and suggest an alternative formulation which rectifies this deficiency.
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The low-dimensional structures formed by tricategories
We form tricategories and the homomorphisms between them into a bicategory, whose 2-cells are certain degenerate tritransformations. We then enrich this bicategory into an example of a three-dimensional structure called a locally cubical bicategory, this being a bicategory enriched in the monoidal 2-category of pseudo double categories. Finally, we show that every sufficiently well-behaved locally cubical bicategory gives rise to a tricategory, and thereby deduce the existence of a tricategory of tricategories.
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