# Contents

## Idea

$\phi_{A,B} : D(F A,B) \cong C(A,G B)$

and a strict 2-adjunction is analogous, where $C,D$ are instead strict 2-categories, $F,G$ are strict 2-functors, and $\phi$ is a strictly 2-natural isomorphism of hom-categories. A lax 2-adjunction is given by a (suitably natural) pair of functors

$\hat\phi_{A,B} : D(F A,B) \overset{\to}{\leftarrow} C(A,G B) : \check\phi_{A,B}$

such that $\check\phi\dashv\hat\phi$.

## Definition

Just as the notion of adjunction makes sense not just in $Cat$ but in any 2-category, lax 2-adjunctions can be defined in any 3-category when the above is suitably reformulated by using the 2-categorical Yoneda lemma. So, given 0-cells $C,D$ and 1-cells $F:C\to D$, $G:D\to C$ in any 3-category, we say $F$ is lax left adjoint to $G$ if we have

• 2-cells $\eta:C\Rightarrow G F$ and $\epsilon:F G \Rightarrow D$, and

• instead of strict triangle equalities, 3-cells (called triangulators) $s,t$

satisfying the swallowtail identities:

and

Mike: What 3-category are we intended to work in to obtain an equivalence with the original notion? I guess this is the question of how strict we require $C,D,F,G$ to be and whether “suitably natural” means “strictly 2-natural” or “pseudo natural.”

Since on the nLab, everything is weak by default, it seems that we should probably use the unadorned name for the version where $C$, $D$ are weak 2-categories, $F$ and $G$ are weak 2-functors, and $\hat\phi$ and $\check\phi$ are pseudo natural.

Finn: For Gray, $C,D,F,G$ are all strict, and $\eta,\epsilon$ are lax. I’m still trying to understand the connection between the two formulations, so I’m not sure how extra weakness on one side translates to the other. I should have a better idea soon.

Mike: Unfortunately, there is no 3-category, not as usually understood, in which the 2-cells are lax transformations. The interchange law for whiskering lax transformations holds only laxly, so at most you have some sort of ‘lax 3-category.’ Actually, in the case of $2Cat$, what you have is that $2Cat$ with the lax Gray tensor product is biclosed and hence enriched over itself, and that sort of enrichment is the relevant 3-category-like structure. (More grist for my mill that lax things are important!)

Finn: Yes, that’s been worrying me. Figuring out the relationship between the two definitions will be my mini-project for the coming week – it’s about time I got to grips with this sort of enriched-Yoneda wizardry.

Gray shows that given a strict 2-adjunction between the 2-comma categories $(F\downarrow D)$ and $(C\downarrow G)$ you get lax $\eta,\epsilon$. Maybe using a stricter comma construction will yield pseudo-natural unit and counit – I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out. (Of course, any hints or suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated!)

Mike: One thing worth pointing out is that there is no Yoneda lemma for lax transformations (though there is for pseudo ones). So in order for $\hat\phi$ to be determined by $\eta$, $\hat\phi$ must be pseudo natural in $B$, and likewise for $\check\phi$ to be determined by $\epsilon$, it must be pseudo natural in $A$. My guess is that laxity in the remaining variable will correspond to laxity of $\eta$ and $\epsilon$, and $s,t$ will come from the adjunction $\check\phi\dashv\hat\phi$. That suggests that if we do everything in a (strict or weak) 3-category, so that $\eta$ and $\epsilon$ must be at least pseudo, we get the homwise notion where “suitably natural” means strict or pseudo.

It appears that in Seely’s paper (referenced below) the functor $G$, at least, is also lax. Lax functors are even harder to incorporate in a 3-category-like structure than lax transformations are; you can’t even whisker any sort of transformation by a lax functor. Moreover, he also seems to say that $\hat\phi$ and $\check\phi$ are both strict in their first coordinate, rather than one in the first and one in the second as seems (to me) to be necessary for a Yoneda restatement. Hmm.

## Sources

This idea was introduced in Gray’s book under the name of transcendental quasi-adjunction.

Mike: Is there a reference for the name “lax 2-adjunction?” It looks very similar to the notion of “local adjunction” in

• Renato Betti and John Power, On Local Adjointness of Distributive Bicategories

except that they allow $F$ to be an oplax functor, $G$ a lax functor, $\hat\phi$ an oplax transformation, and $\check\phi$ a lax transformation.

Finn: I’m roughly following Seely, Modelling computations: a 2-categorical framework, from here. He cites Gray and Kelly–Street, Review of the elements of 2-categories (which I haven’t seen yet).

Mike: Kelly-Street don’t say anything about lax adjunctions. I want to make sure we think seriously about what this sort of thing should be called, rather than just following one or another author. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t fit into the general precise meaning of ‘lax’ (being a type of morphism of algebras for a 2-monad), and there are so many possible variations (as in Gray’s book) that it might be nice to have a sensible system of nomenclature that would include them all. Maybe. On the other hand, I actually never really took Gray’s stuff very seriously because I couldn’t think of any examples; maybe I should look more closely at Seely’s paper.

Finn: Yes, that would be nice, but I for one don’t know enough yet about the big picture to make any suggestions that would generalize easily.

I’m interested in this stuff because I want to use strict 2-categories with lax structure to model rewrite systems, as Seely does. These lax/quasi/local adjunctions are one way of specifying lax structure, but there are probably others (3-monads on 2-Cat? Lawvere 3-theories?).

Mike: I don’t understand how Seely’s definitions give you a 2-category; all I can see is a ‘lax 2-category’ of some sort. If the composite of lambda terms $f$ and $g$ is defined by $(\lambda x) (g(f x))$, then we have

\begin{aligned} h\circ (g\circ f) &= (\lambda x)(h(((\lambda y)(g(f y)))x))\\ (h\circ g) \circ f &= (\lambda x)(((\lambda y)(h(g y)))(f x)) \end{aligned}

which are (as far as I can tell) not the same, but both admit a beta reduction to $(\lambda x)(h(g(f x)))$. Is there some other way of defining composition so that it is associative?

Finn: The composite $f\circ g$ is defined to be the substitution $f[x:=g]$ of $g$ for the free variable $x$ of $f$. Associativity follows. Substitution is meta-notation, and not part of the syntax of $\lambda$-calculus.

If $\hat\phi:f\mapsto \lambda x.f$ and $\check\phi:g\mapsto g\cdot x$ (where $\cdot$ is application and $x$ is a fresh variable), then the ‘local’ adjunctions give

\begin{aligned} (\lambda x.f)\cdot x & \Rightarrow f \\ f & \Rightarrow \lambda x.(f\cdot x) \end{aligned}

which when combined with the definition of composition as substitution give you exactly the $\beta$-reduction and $\eta$-expansion laws.

Mike: Ah, I didn’t notice that the morphisms from $A$ to $B$ are terms of type $B$ with a free variable of type $A$, rather than the (to me) more obvious choice of terms of type $A\Rightarrow B$. I don’t follow your second paragraph, though.

(Of course, on a moment’s reflection that choice makes perfect sense; those are the same as the morphisms in any other category of contexts.)

Finn: Right – it’s the usual functorial semantics interpretation: composition is substitution.

The second paragraph was just pointing out an example of how a lax adjunction arises in typed $\lambda$-calculus. You want types to map to 0-cells and terms to 1-cells as usual, and rewrite relations $t red u$ to map to 2-cells $t\Rightarrow u$. So the term model will be a strict 2-category with (strict or lax) products, together with $(-\times A)$ lax left adjoint to $[A\to -]$ for all $A$. Then the first definition of lax adjunction should give you the $\beta$ and $\eta$ rewrites as the counit and unit of each adjunction $\check\phi\dashv\hat\phi$. As I’ve said above, I’m still working out the details wrt pseudo versus lax naturality, but this is roughly what you should get.

Revised on November 22, 2013 07:26:33 by Urs Schreiber (82.169.114.243)