Distributive category

Last updated

In mathematics, a category is distributive if it has finite products and finite coproducts and such that for every choice of objects , the canonical map

Contents

is an isomorphism, and for all objects , the canonical map is an isomorphism (where 0 denotes the initial object). Equivalently, if for every object the endofunctor defined by preserves coproducts up to isomorphisms . [1] It follows that and aforementioned canonical maps are equal for each choice of objects.

In particular, if the functor has a right adjoint (i.e., if the category is cartesian closed), it necessarily preserves all colimits, and thus any cartesian closed category with finite coproducts (i.e., any bicartesian closed category) is distributive.

Example

The category of sets is distributive. Let A, B, and C be sets. Then

where denotes the coproduct in Set, namely the disjoint union, and denotes a bijection. In the case where A, B, and C are finite sets, this result reflects the distributive property: the above sets each have cardinality .

The categories Grp and Ab are not distributive, even though they have both products and coproducts.

An even simpler category that has both products and coproducts but is not distributive is the category of pointed sets. [2]

Related Research Articles

In mathematics, one can often define a direct product of objects already known, giving a new one. This induces a structure on the Cartesian product of the underlying sets from that of the contributing objects. More abstractly, one talks about the product in category theory, which formalizes these notions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isomorphism</span> In mathematics, invertible homomorphism

In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word isomorphism is derived from the Ancient Greek: ἴσοςisos "equal", and μορφήmorphe "form" or "shape".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Group (mathematics)</span> Set with associative invertible operation

In mathematics, a group is a set with an operation that satisfies the following constraints: the operation is associative and has an identity element, and every element of the set has an inverse element.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Category (mathematics)</span> Mathematical object that generalizes the standard notions of sets and functions

In mathematics, a category is a collection of "objects" that are linked by "arrows". A category has two basic properties: the ability to compose the arrows associatively and the existence of an identity arrow for each object. A simple example is the category of sets, whose objects are sets and whose arrows are functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disjoint union</span> In mathematics, operation on sets

In mathematics, the disjoint union of the sets A and B is the set formed from the elements of A and B labelled (indexed) with the name of the set from which they come. So, an element belonging to both A and B appears twice in the disjoint union, with two different labels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exterior algebra</span> Algebra of a vector space

In mathematics, the exterior product or wedge product of vectors is an algebraic construction used in geometry to study areas, volumes, and their higher-dimensional analogs. The exterior product of two vectors u and v, denoted by uv, is called a bivector and lives in a space called the exterior square, a vector space that is distinct from the original space of vectors. The magnitude of uv can be interpreted as the area of the parallelogram with sides u and v, which in three dimensions can also be computed using the cross product of the two vectors. Like the cross product, the exterior product is anticommutative, meaning that uv = −(vu) for all vectors u and v, but, unlike the cross product, the exterior product is associative. One way to visualize a bivector is as a family of parallelograms all lying in the same plane, having the same area and orientation, which is a choice of rotational direction within the plane (clockwise or counterclockwise from some view).

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 product of two objects in a category is a notion designed to capture the essence behind constructions in other areas of mathematics such as the Cartesian product of sets, the direct product of groups or rings, and the product of topological spaces. Essentially, the product of a family of objects is the "most general" object which admits a morphism to each of the given objects.

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 free module is a module that has a basis, that is, a generating set consisting of linearly independent elements. Every vector space is a free module, but, if the ring of the coefficients is not a division ring, then there exist non-free modules.

In mathematics, a monoidal category is a category equipped with a bifunctor

In category theory, a branch of abstract mathematics, an equivalence of categories is a relation between two categories that establishes that these categories are "essentially the same". There are numerous examples of categorical equivalences from many areas of mathematics. Establishing an equivalence involves demonstrating strong similarities between the mathematical structures concerned. In some cases, these structures may appear to be unrelated at a superficial or intuitive level, making the notion fairly powerful: it creates the opportunity to "translate" theorems between different kinds of mathematical structures, knowing that the essential meaning of those theorems is preserved under the translation.

In mathematics, categorification is the process of replacing set-theoretic theorems with category-theoretic analogues. Categorification, when done successfully, replaces sets with categories, functions with functors, and equations with natural isomorphisms of functors satisfying additional properties. The term was coined by Louis Crane.

The direct sum is an operation between structures in abstract algebra, a branch of mathematics. It is defined differently, but analogously, for different kinds of structures. To see how the direct sum is used in abstract algebra, consider a more elementary kind of structure, the abelian group. The direct sum of two abelian groups and is another abelian group consisting of the ordered pairs where and . To add ordered pairs, we define the sum to be ; in other words addition is defined coordinate-wise. For example, the direct sum , where is real coordinate space, is the Cartesian plane, . A similar process can be used to form the direct sum of two vector spaces or two modules.

In mathematics, specifically abstract algebra, the opposite of a ring is another ring with the same elements and addition operation, but with the multiplication performed in the reverse order. More explicitly, the opposite of a ring (R, +, ) is the ring (R, +, ∗) whose multiplication ∗ is defined by ab = ba for all a, b in R. The opposite ring can be used to define multimodules, a generalization of bimodules. They also help clarify the relationship between left and right modules (see § Properties).

In category theory, a branch of mathematics, for every object in every category where the product exists, there exists the diagonal morphism

In mathematics, a dual abelian variety can be defined from an abelian variety A, defined over a field k.

In mathematics, specifically in the field known as category theory, a monoidal category where the monoidal ("tensor") product is the categorical product is called a cartesian monoidal category. Any category with finite products can be thought of as a cartesian monoidal category. In any cartesian monoidal category, the terminal object is the monoidal unit. Dually, a monoidal finite coproduct category with the monoidal structure given by the coproduct and unit the initial object is called a cocartesian monoidal category, and any finite coproduct category can be thought of as a cocartesian monoidal category.

References

  1. Taylor, Paul (1999). Practical Foundations of Mathematics. Cambridge University Press. p. 275.
  2. F. W. Lawvere; Stephen Hoel Schanuel (2009). Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp.  296–298. ISBN   978-0-521-89485-2.

Further reading