In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a closed category is a special kind of category.
In a locally small category, the external hom (x, y) maps a pair of objects to a set of morphisms. So in the category of sets, this is an object of the category itself. In the same vein, in a closed category, the (object of) morphisms from one object to another can be seen as lying inside the category. This is the internal hom [x, y].
Every closed category has a forgetful functor to the category of sets, which in particular takes the internal hom to the external hom.
A closed category can be defined as a category with a so-called internal Hom functor
with left Yoneda arrows
natural in and and dinatural in , and a fixed object of with a natural isomorphism
and a dinatural transformation
all satisfying certain coherence conditions.
In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of converting a function that takes multiple arguments into a sequence of functions that each takes a single argument. For example, currying a function that takes three arguments creates three functions:
In mathematics, specifically category theory, a functor is a mapping between categories. Functors were first considered in algebraic topology, where algebraic objects are associated to topological spaces, and maps between these algebraic objects are associated to continuous maps between spaces. Nowadays, functors are used throughout modern mathematics to relate various categories. Thus, functors are important in all areas within mathematics to which category theory is applied.
In mathematics, more specifically in category theory, a universal property is a property that characterizes up to an isomorphism the result of some constructions. Thus, universal properties can be used for defining some objects independently from the method chosen for constructing them. For example, the definitions of the integers from the natural numbers, of the rational numbers from the integers, of the real numbers from the rational numbers, and of polynomial rings from the field of their coefficients can all be done in terms of universal properties. In particular, the concept of universal property allows a simple proof that all constructions of real numbers are equivalent: it suffices to prove that they satisfy the same universal property.
In mathematics, the Yoneda lemma is arguably the most important result in category theory. It is an abstract result on functors of the type morphisms into a fixed object. It is a vast generalisation of Cayley's theorem from group theory. It allows the embedding of any locally small category into a category of functors defined on that category. It also clarifies how the embedded category, of representable functors and their natural transformations, relates to the other objects in the larger functor category. It is an important tool that underlies several modern developments in algebraic geometry and representation theory. It is named after Nobuo Yoneda.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, the abstract notion of a limit captures the essential properties of universal constructions such as products, pullbacks and inverse limits. The dual notion of a colimit generalizes constructions such as disjoint unions, direct sums, coproducts, pushouts and direct limits.
In mathematics, an abelian category is a category in which morphisms and objects can be added and in which kernels and cokernels exist and have desirable properties. The motivating prototypical example of an abelian category is the category of abelian groups, Ab. The theory originated in an effort to unify several cohomology theories by Alexander Grothendieck and independently in the slightly earlier work of David Buchsbaum. Abelian categories are very stable categories; for example they are regular and they satisfy the snake lemma. The class of abelian categories is closed under several categorical constructions, for example, the category of chain complexes of an abelian category, or the category of functors from a small category to an abelian category are abelian as well. These stability properties make them inevitable in homological algebra and beyond; the theory has major applications in algebraic geometry, cohomology and pure category theory. Abelian categories are named after Niels Henrik Abel.
In mathematics, specifically category theory, adjunction is a relationship that two functors may have, intuitively corresponding to a weak form of equivalence between two related categories. Two functors that stand in this relationship are known as adjoint functors, one being the left adjoint and the other the right adjoint. Pairs of adjoint functors are ubiquitous in mathematics and often arise from constructions of "optimal solutions" to certain problems, such as the construction of a free group on a set in algebra, or the construction of the Stone–Čech compactification of a topological space in topology.
In mathematics, specifically in category theory, a pre-abelian category is an additive category that has all kernels and cokernels.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, an enriched category generalizes the idea of a category by replacing hom-sets with objects from a general monoidal category. It is motivated by the observation that, in many practical applications, the hom-set often has additional structure that should be respected, e.g., that of being a vector space of morphisms, or a topological space of morphisms. In an enriched category, the set of morphisms associated with every pair of objects is replaced by an object in some fixed monoidal category of "hom-objects". In order to emulate the (associative) composition of morphisms in an ordinary category, the hom-category must have a means of composing hom-objects in an associative manner: that is, there must be a binary operation on objects giving us at least the structure of a monoidal category, though in some contexts the operation may also need to be commutative and perhaps also to have a right adjoint.
In category theory, a category is Cartesian closed if, roughly speaking, any morphism defined on a product of two objects can be naturally identified with a morphism defined on one of the factors. These categories are particularly important in mathematical logic and the theory of programming, in that their internal language is the simply typed lambda calculus. They are generalized by closed monoidal categories, whose internal language, linear type systems, are suitable for both quantum and classical computation.
In category theory, the coproduct, or categorical sum, is a construction which includes as examples the disjoint union of sets and of topological spaces, the free product of groups, and the direct sum of modules and vector spaces. The coproduct of a family of objects is essentially the "least specific" object to which each object in the family admits a morphism. It is the category-theoretic dual notion to the categorical product, which means the definition is the same as the product but with all arrows reversed. Despite this seemingly innocuous change in the name and notation, coproducts can be and typically are dramatically different from products.
In mathematics, a monoidal category is a category equipped with a bifunctor
In mathematics, particularly category theory, a representable functor is a certain functor from an arbitrary category into the category of sets. Such functors give representations of an abstract category in terms of known structures allowing one to utilize, as much as possible, knowledge about the category of sets in other settings.
In mathematics, the derived categoryD(A) of an abelian category A is a construction of homological algebra introduced to refine and in a certain sense to simplify the theory of derived functors defined on A. The construction proceeds on the basis that the objects of D(A) should be chain complexes in A, with two such chain complexes considered isomorphic when there is a chain map that induces an isomorphism on the level of homology of the chain complexes. Derived functors can then be defined for chain complexes, refining the concept of hypercohomology. The definitions lead to a significant simplification of formulas otherwise described by complicated spectral sequences.
In mathematics, especially in category theory, a closed monoidal category is a category that is both a monoidal category and a closed category in such a way that the structures are compatible.
Fibred categories are abstract entities in mathematics used to provide a general framework for descent theory. They formalise the various situations in geometry and algebra in which inverse images of objects such as vector bundles can be defined. As an example, for each topological space there is the category of vector bundles on the space, and for every continuous map from a topological space X to another topological space Y is associated the pullback functor taking bundles on Y to bundles on X. Fibred categories formalise the system consisting of these categories and inverse image functors. Similar setups appear in various guises in mathematics, in particular in algebraic geometry, which is the context in which fibred categories originally appeared. Fibered categories are used to define stacks, which are fibered categories with "descent". Fibrations also play an important role in categorical semantics of type theory, and in particular that of dependent type theories.
This is a glossary of properties and concepts in category theory in mathematics.
In mathematics, specifically in category theory, hom-sets give rise to important functors to the category of sets. These functors are called hom-functors and have numerous applications in category theory and other branches of mathematics.
In category theory, monoidal functors are functors between monoidal categories which preserve the monoidal structure. More specifically, a monoidal functor between two monoidal categories consists of a functor between the categories, along with two coherence maps—a natural transformation and a morphism that preserve monoidal multiplication and unit, respectively. Mathematicians require these coherence maps to satisfy additional properties depending on how strictly they want to preserve the monoidal structure; each of these properties gives rise to a slightly different definition of monoidal functors
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a dual object is an analogue of a dual vector space from linear algebra for objects in arbitrary monoidal categories. It is only a partial generalization, based upon the categorical properties of duality for finite-dimensional vector spaces. An object admitting a dual is called a dualizable object. In this formalism, infinite-dimensional vector spaces are not dualizable, since the dual vector space V∗ doesn't satisfy the axioms. Often, an object is dualizable only when it satisfies some finiteness or compactness property.