nLab compact closed category

Contents

Context

Monoidal categories

monoidal categories

With braiding

With duals for objects

With duals for morphisms

With traces

Closed structure

Special sorts of products

Semisimplicity

Morphisms

Internal monoids

Examples

Theorems

In higher category theory

Contents

Definition

A compact closed category, or simply a compact category, is a symmetric monoidal category in which every object is dualizable, hence a rigid symmetric monoidal category.

More generally, if we drop the symmetry requirement, we obtain a rigid monoidal category, a.k.a. an autonomous category. Thus a compact category may also be called a rigid symmetric monoidal category or a symmetric autonomous category. A maximally clear, but rather verbose, term would be a symmetric monoidal category with duals for objects.

A compact closed category is a special case of the notion of compact closed pseudomonoid in a monoidal bicategory, and similarly for the autonomous cases.

Properties

Internal hom and compact closure

A rigid symmetric monoidal category (๐’ž,โŠ—)(\mathcal{C}, \otimes) is in particular a closed monoidal category, with the internal hom given by

[A,B]โ‰ƒA *โŠ—B [A,B] \simeq A^* \otimes B

(where A *A^* is the dual object of AA), via the adjunction natural equivalence that defines dual objects

๐’ž(C,[A,B])โ‰ƒ๐’ž(C,A *โŠ—B)โ‰ƒ๐’ž(CโŠ—A,B). \mathcal{C}(C,[A,B]) \simeq \mathcal{C}(C, A^\ast \otimes B) \simeq \mathcal{C}(C \otimes A, B) \,.

This is what the terminology โ€œcompact closedโ€ refers to.

The inclusion from the category of compact closed categories into the category of closed symmetric monoidal categories also has a left adjoint (Day 1977). Given a closed symmetric monoidal category ๐’ฎ\mathcal{S}, the free compact closed category C(๐’ฎ)C(\mathcal{S}) over ๐’ฎ\mathcal{S} may be described as a localization of ๐’ฎ\mathcal{S} by the maps

ฯƒ:[A,B]โŠ—Cโ†’[A,BโŠ—C] \sigma : [A,B] \otimes C \to [A, B \otimes C]

corresponding to the tensorial strength of the functors [A,โˆ’]:๐’ฎโ†’๐’ฎ[A,-] : \mathcal{S} \to \mathcal{S}.

Relation to traced monoidal categories

Given a traced monoidal category ๐’ž\mathcal{C}, there is a free construction completion of it to a compact closed category Int(๐’ž)Int(\mathcal{C}) (Joyal-Street-Verity 96):

the objects of Int(๐’ž)Int(\mathcal{C}) are pairs (A +,A โˆ’)(A^+, A^-) of objects of ๐’ž\mathcal{C}, a morphism (A +,A โˆ’)โ†’(B +,B โˆ’)(A^+ , A^-) \to (B^+ , B^-) in Int(๐’ž)Int(\mathcal{C}) is given by a morphism of the form A +โŠ—B โˆ’โŸถA โˆ’โŠ—B +A^+\otimes B^- \longrightarrow A^- \otimes B^+ in ๐’ž\mathcal{C}, and composition of two such morphisms (A +,A โˆ’)โ†’(B +,B โˆ’)(A^+ , A^-) \to (B^+ , B^-) and (B +,B โˆ’)โ†’(C +,C โˆ’)(B^+ , B^-) \to (C^+ , C^-) is given by tracing out B +B^+ and B โˆ’B^- in the evident way.

Relation to star-autonomous categories

A compact closed category is a star-autonomous category: the tensor unit is a dualizing object. Thus it is also an isomix category. (But note that, for example, the symmetric monoidal category of sup-lattices is star-autonomous, with dualizing object given by the unit, but not compact closed. In a compact closed category, the dualizing functor is additionally monoidal.)

Examples

References

The characterization of the free compact closed category over a closed symmetric monoidal category is described in

Discussion of coherence in compact closed categories is due to

The relation to quantum operations and completely positive maps is discussed in

  • Peter Selinger, Dagger compact closed categories and completely positive maps, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 170 (2007) Pages 139-163, doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2006.12.018

The relation to traced monoidal categories is discussed in

Last revised on June 4, 2023 at 15:03:04. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.