The notion of relative adjoint functors with respect to a functor is a generalization of that of adjoint functor (to which it reduces for an identity functor). In generalization of the relation between adjunctions and monads, relative adjoint functors are related to relative monads.
Fix a functor . Then, for a functor
to have left -relative adjoint (or -left adjoint) means that there is a functor
and a natural isomorphism of the ofrm
Dually, for to have a -right adjoint means that there is a natural isomorphism of the form
One writes
Just as with regular adjoints, in the unenriched setting, relative adjoints can be defined in a more conceptual way in terms of absolute liftings. We have
However, this is not true for enriched functors.
The most important difference with regular adjunctions is the asymmetry of the concept. First, for it makes no sense to ask for (domains and comodomains do not typecheck). And secondly, and more importantly:
(this is obvious from the definition in terms of liftings). Because of this, even if most of the properties of adjunctions have a generalization to the relative setting, they do that in a one-sided way.
Asymmetry manifests itself here:
with no naturally available counterpart for them in each case.
These 2-cells are directly provided by the definition in terms of liftings, as the universal 2-cells
Alternatively, and just as with regular adjunctions, their components can be obtained from the natural hom-isomorphism: in the unit case, evaluating at we get a bijection
and
is given by evaluating at the aforementioned bijection. A completely analogous procedure yields a description of the counit for .
Just as adjunctions give rise to monads and comonads, for relative adjoints
with relative units and counits as above, respectively.
There are also relative analogues of Eilenberg-Moore and Kleisli categories for these.
The concept of relative adjoint functors is a generalization of the concept of adjoint functors: if a functor has a left adjoint in the usual sense, then it also has a -left adjoint for .
A functor is fully faithful iff it is representably fully faithful iff , and this lifting is absolute. Thus, fully faithful can be expressed as
As remarked in the local definition of adjoint functor, given a functor
it may happen that is representable only for some , but not for all of them. In that case, taking
be the inclusion of the full subcategory determined by representable, and defining accordingly, we have
This can be specialized to situations such as a category having some but not all limits of some kind, partially defined Kan extensions, etc. See also free object.
Take a locally small category, and a locally left-small functor (one for which is always small). The -nerve induced by is the functor
given by . It is a fundamental fact that and this lifting is absolute; or, in relative adjoint notation, . The universal 2-cell is given by the action of on morphisms:
at is
Note that when specialized to , this reduces to the Yoneda lemma: first , and then absolute in hom-isomorphism terms reads:
One of the axioms of a Yoneda structure on a 2-category abstract over this situation, by requiring the existence of -nerves with respect to yoneda embeddings such that the 1-cell is an absolute left lifting as above; see Weber or Street–Walters .
Friedrich Ulmer, Properties of dense and relative adjoint functors, Journal of Algebra, 8 1 (1968) 77-95 [doi:10.1016/0021-8693(68)90036-7]
Ross Street, Bob Walters, Yoneda structures on 2-categories, Journal of Algebra, 50 2 (1978) 350-379 [doi:10.1016/0021-8693(78)90160-6, mendeley]
Thorsten Altenkirch, James Chapman, Tarmo Uustalu, Monads need not be endofunctors, Logical Methods in Computer Science 11 1:3 (2015) 1–40 [arXiv:1412.7148, pdf, doi:10.2168/LMCS-11(1:3)2015]
Mark Weber - Yoneda structures from 2-toposes, Appl Categor Struct. 15 (2007) 259. [doi:10.1007/s10485-007-9079-2, pdf]
On the categorical semantics of dependent product types as relative right adjoints to context extension in comprehension categories:
Last revised on August 20, 2023 at 14:29:48. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.