A locally presentable category is a category which contains a small set of small objects such that every object is a nice colimit over objects in this set.
This says equivalently that a locally presentable category is a reflective localization of a category of presheaves over . Since here is the free colimit completion of and the localization imposes relations, this is a presentation of by generators and relations, hence the name (locally) presentable category.
See also at locally presentable categories - introduction.
There are many equivalent characterizations of locally presentable categories. The following is one of the most intuitive, equivalent characterizations are discussed below.
(locally presentable category)
A category is called locally presentable if
it is an accessible category;
it has all small colimits.
This means
is a locally small category;
has all small colimits;
there exists a small set of -compact objects that generates under -filtered colimits for some regular cardinal .
If follows that every object in a locally presentable category is a small object.
The locally in locally presentable category refers to the fact that it is the objects of (in) the category that are presentable, not the category as such (which is itself an object of Cat). This permits the distinction between, for instance, locally presentable categories, and finitely presentable objects of Cat, which could be called “finitely presentable categories”. In practice, however, it is common to drop “locally” from “locally presentable category” without modifying the meaning.
Since a small object is one which is -compact for some , and any -compact object is also -compact for any , it follows that there exists some such that every object of the colimit-generating set is -compact.
This provides a “stratification” of the class of locally presentable categories, as follows.
(locally -presentable category)
For a regular cardinal, a locally -presentable category is a locally presentable category, def. , such that the colimit-generating set may be taken to consist of -compact objects.
Thus, a locally presentable category is one which is locally -presentable for some regular cardinal (hence also for every ). In fact, in this case the fourth condition is redundant; once we know that there is a colimit-generating set consisting of -compact objects, it follows automatically that every object is -compact for some (though there is no uniform upper bound on the required size of ). Moreover, colimit-generation is also stronger than necessary; it suffices to have a strong generator consisting of small objects.
A locally -presentable category is called a locally finitely presentable category.
There are various equivalent characterizations of locally presentable categories.
(as limit sketches)
Locally presentable categories are precisely the categories of models of limit-sketches.
This is Adámek & Rosický (1994), corollary 1.52.
Restricted to locally finitely presentable categories this becomes:
Locally finitely presentable categories, def. , are equivalently the categories of finite limit preserving functors , for small finitely complete categories .
For the more detailed statement see below at Gabriel-Ulmer duality. Equivalently this says that:
Locally finitely presentable categories are equivalently models of finitary essentially algebraic theories.
(as accessible reflective subcategories of presheaves)
Locally presentable categories are precisely the accessibly embedded full reflective subcategories
of categories of presheaves on some small category .
This appears as Adámek & Rosický (1994), prop 1.46.
Here accessibly embedded means that is an accessible functor, which in turn means that is closed in under -filtered colimits for some regular cardinal .
See also at sheaf toposes are equivalently the left exact reflective subcategories of presheaf toposes.
Locally presentable categories are complete.
A reflective subcategory of a complete category is complete, since monadic functors reflect limits, and the above proposition shows that any locally presentable category is a reflective subcategory of a presheaf category, which is complete.
Write for the 2-category of small categories with finite limits, with finitely continuous (i.e., finite limit preserving) functors between them, and natural transformations between those.
Write for the 2-category of locally finitely presentable categories, def. , right adjoint functors which preserve filtered colimits, and natural transformations between them.
There is an equivalence of 2-categories
which sends a finitely complete category to the category of models of , i.e., the category of left exact functors Set.
Every locally presentable category is well-powered, since it is a full reflective subcategory of a presheaf topos, so its subobject lattices are subsets of those of the latter.
Every locally presentable category is also well-copowered. This is shown in Adámek & Rosický (1994), Prop. 1.57 & Thm. 2.49.
We list examples of locally finitely presentable categories, def. .
The category Set of sets is locally finitely presentable.
For notice that every set is the directed colimit over the poset of all its finite subsets.
Moreover, a set is a -compact object precisely if it has cardinality . So all finite sets are -compact.
Hence a a set of generators that exhibits as a locally finitely complete category is given by the set containing one finite set of cardinality for all .
More generally, for any small category the category of presheaves is locally finitely presentable.
This follows with Gabriel-Ulmer duality: the finite limit completion of , , is also small, and is equivalent to the category of finitely continuous functors .
More generally still, if is locally finitely presentable and is small, then is locally finitely presentable.
To see this, embed as a finitely-accessible reflective subcategory of a presheaf topos , and then note that by 2-functoriality of we get as a finitely-accessible reflective subcategory of .
The category of algebras of a Lawvere theory, for example Grp, is locally finitely presentable. A -algebra is finitely presented if and only if the hom-functor preserves filtered colimits, and any -algebra can be expressed as a filtered colimit of finitely presented algebras.
The category of coalgebras over a field is locally finitely presentable; similarly the category of commutative coalgebras over is locally finitely presentable.
A poset, regarded as a category, is locally finitely presentable if it is a complete lattice which is algebraic (each element is a directed join of finite elements).
The category FinSet of finite sets is not locally finitely presentable, as it does not have all countable colimits.
The category Field of fields and field homomorphisms is not locally presentable, as it does not have all binary coproducts (for instance, there are none between fields of differing characteristics).
TopologicalSpaces is not locally finitely presentable.
The opposite category of a locally presentable category (in particular, a locally finitely presentable category) is never locally presentable, unless it is a poset. This is Gabriel-Ulmer, Satz 7.13.
A poset, considered as a category, is locally presentable precisely if it is a complete lattice.
Every Grothendieck abelian category is locally presentable [Beke (200), Prop. 3.10, cf. Krause (2015), Cor. 5.2].
This implies in particular (by this example at Grothendieck abelian category) that for a commutative ring (internal to any Grothendieck topos):
the category of chain complexes is locally presentable.
The following three examples, being presheaf categories, are locally finitely presentable, thus a fortiori locally presentable. They are important for the general study of (∞,1)-categories.
the category sSet of simplicial sets;
the category dSet of dendroidal sets.
for a small category the functor category of simplicial presheaves
More generally,
Every sheaf topos is locally presentable.
This appears for instance as (Borceux, prop. 3.4.16, page 220). It follows directly with prop. and using that every sheaf topos is an accessibly embedded subtopos of a presheaf topos (see at sheaf toposes are equivalently the left exact reflective subcategories of presheaf toposes)
The main ingredient of a direct proof is:
For a site and a regular cardinal strictly larger than the cardinality of , every -filtered colimit in the sheaf topos is computed objectwise.
This implies that all representables in a sheaf topos are -compact objects.
If is an accessible monad (a monad whose underlying functor is an accessible functor) on a locally presentable category , then the category of algebras over the monad is locally presentable. In particular, if is locally presentable and is a reflective subcategory, then is locally presentable if is accessible.
This appears in Adámek & Rosický (1994), 2.78.
This is actually somewhat subtle and gets into some transfinite combinatorics, from what I can gather.
Given
a locally presentable category
then also the functor category is locally presentable.
See at Functor category – Local presentability for more.
A slice category of a locally presentable category is again locally presentable.
(locally presentable Grothendieck constructions)
Given a pseudofunctor with values in as
such that for some regular cardinal
then also the Grothendieck construction is locally presentable.
A combinatorial model category is a model category that is in particular a locally presentable category.
Given a class of morphisms in a locally presentable category, the answer to the orthogonal subcategory problem for is affirmative if is small, and is affirmative for any class assuming the large cardinal axiom known as Vopenka's principle.
Another notion of “presentable category” is that of an equationally presentable category.
Locally presentable categories are a special case of locally bounded categories.
Locally presentable categories: Cocomplete possibly-large categories generated under filtered colimits by small generators under small relations. Equivalently, accessible reflective localizations of free cocompletions. Accessible categories omit the cocompleteness requirement; toposes add the requirement of a left exact localization.
The definition is due to
Textbook account:
Review for the case of locally finitely presentable categories:
See also:
C. Centazzo, Jiří Rosický, Enrico Vitale, A characterization of locally -presentable categories (pdf)
Francis Borceux, Handbook of Categorical Algebra: III Categories of Sheaves (proposition 3.4.16), page 220.
Jacob Lurie, A.1.1 of: Higher Topos Theory
(where locally presentable categories are called presentable categories)
On the example of Grothendieck abelian categories:
Tibor Beke, Sheafifiable homotopy model categories, Math. Proc. Cambridge Philosophical Society 129 3 (2000) 447-475 [arXiv:math/0102087, doi:10.1017/S0305004100004722]
Greg Bird, Limits in 2-Categories of Locally-Presentable Categories pdf]
Henning Krause, Deriving Auslander’s formula, Documenta Math. 20 (2015) 669-688 [arXiv:1409.7051]
Discussion of local presentability in enriched category theory (see also references on enriched accessible categories):
See also:
Last revised on August 1, 2024 at 12:19:49. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.