English

Not every pseudoalgebra is equivalent to a strict one

Category Theory 2011-01-12 v2

Abstract

We describe a finitary 2-monad on a locally finitely presentable 2-category for which not every pseudoalgebra is equivalent to a strict one. This shows that having rank is not a sufficient condition on a 2-monad for every pseudoalgebra to be strictifiable. Our counterexample comes from higher category theory: the strict algebras are strict 3-categories, and the pseudoalgebras are a type of semi-strict 3-category lying in between Gray-categories and tricategories. Thus, the result follows from the fact that not every Gray-category is equivalent to a strict 3-category, connecting 2-categorical and higher-categorical coherence theory. In particular, any nontrivially braided monoidal category gives an example of a pseudoalgebra that is not equivalent to a strict one.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1005.1520,
  title  = {Not every pseudoalgebra is equivalent to a strict one},
  author = {Michael A. Shulman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.1520},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

17 pages; added more explanation; final version, to appear in Adv. Math

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:20:31.967Z