Definitions
Transfors between 2-categories
Morphisms in 2-categories
Structures in 2-categories
Limits in 2-categories
Structures on 2-categories
A virtual double category or -multicategory is a common generalization of a monoidal category, a bicategory, a double category, and a multicategory. It contains:
2-cells are usually drawn like this:
Note that this includes the case when , i.e. a cell of “nullary” source. In this case, we must have .
Note that the “empty” case of a string of loose arrows this has a single object in which case the 2-cell looks like:
Finally, the 2-cells can be composed in a more or less evident way, akin to composition in a multicategory:
Virtual double categories are related to double categories precisely as ordinary multicategories are related to monoidal categories (see generalized multicategory and tensor product).
The dual notion in which 2-cells have a single loose source and a multi-ary loose target may be called a covirtual double category, although the term oplax double category also exists in the literature e.g. Dawson, Paré, Pronk.
A virtual double category can be defined in two equivalent ways:
It is a -multicategory, in the sense of Leinster, relative to the monad on directed graphs whose algebras are categories. For this reason, Leinster originally called them fc-multicategories, where “fc” is a name for this monad which stands for “free-category.”
It is a generalized multicategory, in the sense of Hermida, Cruttwell-Shulman, and others, relative to the monad on graphs-internal-to-Cat whose algebras are double categories. This is the origin of the name “virtual double category,” in line with the general terminology “virtual -algebra” of Cruttwell-Shulman for such generalized multicategories.
We can also give an explicit definition, which was more or less already given in the “Idea” section: all that is missing are identities and associativity for 2-cell composition.
There are notions of functor, transformation, and profunctor between virtual double categories. The neatest way to define all of these notions at once is to use the general framework of generalized multicategories: from the monad on the virtual equipment we can construct a new virtual equipment whose objects are virtual double categories, whose arrows are functors between them, whose proarrows are profunctors between them, and whose cells are transformations. But we can also give explicit definitions of all of these notions.
A functor of virtual double categories is fairly obvious; it takes each kind of morphism/cell to the same kind, preserving sources, targets, composition, and identities.
The relevant transformations are a “virtual” version of tight transformations? between ordinary double categories. Specifically, a transformation has a tight arrow component for each object of the domain, and a cell component
for each loose arrow in the domain. These must be natural with respect to tight composition of arrows and of 2-cells, where we must of course allow composites with arbitrary arities in the latter case.
Virtual double categories, functors, and transformations form a strict 2-category, and thus we can apply all notions of 2-category theory to it. In particular, we have a notion of a monad on a virtual double category, which is the starting point for one theory of generalized multicategories.
The profunctors between virtual double categories are a similar “virtualization” of the notion of double profunctor between double categories. Explicitly, a profunctor consists of:
An ordinary profunctor between the categories of objects and tight arrows.
For each string of loose arrows in , each loose arrow in , and each pair of elements and , a set of “hetero-cells” of shape
The hetero-cells are acted on by the 2-cells of on the top, and by the 2-cells of on the bottom, in an evident way, respecting the given action of tight arrows of and on the elements of .
Every double profunctor induces such a profunctor in an evident way, but even if and are (non-virtual) double categories, not every “virtual double profunctor” from to need be a double functor; only those for which the “hetero-cells” also factor uniquely through the opcartesian cells in which make it “representable.”
As mentioned above in the context of the abstract definition, virtual double categories, functors, transformations, and profunctors form another virtual double category, which is in fact a virtual equipment.
A monad on a virtual double category is a monad in the 2-category vDbl.
So a monad on a consists of a functor
and transformations and satisfying associativity and unitality.
For a monad on vDbl, a -monoid is
an object ;
a loose morphism
an action 2-morphism
and a unit 2-morphism
satisfying the evident compatibility conditions.
This is (CruttwellShulman, def. 4.2).
A generalized multicategory is a normalized -monoid for some monad on a virtual equipment vDbl.
This is (CruttwellShulman, page 7).
Virtual double categories can be viewed as “the natural place in which to enrich categories.” Specifically, for any set , there is a virtual double category which has as its objects, only identity tight arrows, exactly one loose arrow from every object to every other object, and exactly one 2-cell in every possible niche. For any other virtual double category , a functor of virtual double categories is the same as a -enriched category with object set .
Virtual double categories were first considered by Albert Burroni under the name multicatégorie on page 61 of:
Later, they were considered in:
Tom Leinster, Higher Operads, Higher Categories, link, arXiv:0305049
Tom Leinster, fc-multicategories, arxiv (1999)
They are called lax double categories in:
and the dual concept is called oplax double category in:
The name virtual double category is introduced in:
On a string diagram-calculus for (virtual) double categories with (virtual) pro-arrow equipments:
David Jaz Myers, String Diagrams For Double Categories and (Virtual) Equipments [arXiv:1612.02762]
David Jaz Myers, String Diagrams for (Virtual) Proarrow Equipments (2017) [slides: pdf, pdf]
Last revised on October 31, 2024 at 14:59:22. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.