English

Endomorphisms of the symmetric 2-rig of finite sets

Category Theory 2020-04-21 v3

Abstract

Let FSet^\widehat{\mathbb{F}\mathbb{S}et} be the groupoid of finite sets and bijections between them equipped with the canonical symmetric rig category structure given by the disjoint union and the cartesian product of finite sets. We prove that the category (in fact, groupoid) of endomorphisms of FSet^\widehat{\mathbb{F}\mathbb{S}et} is equivalent to the terminal category, thus providing some evidence that FSet^\widehat{\mathbb{F}\mathbb{S}et} is the right categorical analog of the commutative rig N\mathbb{N} of nonnegative integers. This is shown using a particular semistrict skeletal version of FSet^\widehat{\mathbb{F}\mathbb{S}et} for which the endomorphisms can be described very explicitly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.08757,
  title  = {Endomorphisms of the symmetric 2-rig of finite sets},
  author = {Josep Elgueta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.08757},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

The main theorem is true, but the proof contains a mistake which makes the argument much more complicated, and at the end does not prove the theorem as stated