Related papers: String diagrams for traced and compact categories …
A category equivalent to the category of 3-dimensional cobordisms is defined in terms of planar diagrams. The operation of composition in this category is completely described via these diagrams.
The theory of 2-monads entails that, for a strict monoidal category C, there is a strict monoidal category L(C) such that strict monoidal functors from L(C) are precisely the lax monoidal functors from C. We give an elementary,…
Universal algebra uniformly captures various algebraic structures, by expressing them as equational theories or abstract clones. The ubiquity of algebraic structures in mathematics and related fields has given rise to several variants of…
We introduce a tensor product for symmetric monoidal categories with the following properties. Let SMC denote the 2-category with objects small symmetric monoidal categories, arrows symmetric monoidal functors and 2-cells monoidal natural…
We prove Steinebrunner's conjecture on the biequivalence between (colored) properads and labelled cospan categories. The main part of the work is to establish a 1-categorical, strict version of the conjecture, showing that the category of…
We begin with a brief sketch of what is known and conjectured concerning braided monoidal 2-categories and their applications to 4d topological quantum field theories and 2-tangles (surfaces embedded in 4-dimensional space). Then we give…
We study structures which have arisen in recent work by the present author and Bob Coecke on a categorical axiomatics for Quantum Mechanics; in particular, the notion of strongly compact closed category. We explain how these structures…
Tangent categories provide a categorical axiomatization of the tangent bundle. There are many interesting examples and applications of tangent categories in a variety of areas such as differential geometry, algebraic geometry, algebra, and…
By the Lefschetz fixed point theorem, if an endomorphism of a topological space is fixed-point-free, then its Lefschetz number vanishes. This necessary condition is not usually sufficient, however; for that we need a refinement of the…
One goal of applied category theory is to better understand networks appearing throughout science and engineering. Here we introduce "structured cospans" as a way to study networks with inputs and outputs. Given a functor $L \colon…
We first discuss how open/closed chord diagrams, both with and without marked points, act on appropriate Hochschild complexes possibly coupled with the two-sided cobar complex. Then, in the main part of the paper, we introduce the notion of…
The data for many useful bidirectional constructions in applied category theory (optics, learners, games, quantum combs) can be expressed in terms of diagrams containing "holes" or "incomplete parts", sometimes known as comb diagrams. We…
Just as knots and links can be algebraically described as certain morphisms in the category of tangles in 3 dimensions, compact surfaces smoothly embedded in R^4 can be described as certain 2-morphisms in the 2-category of `2-tangles in 4…
We prove a coherence theorem for invertible objects in a symmetric monoidal category. This is used to deduce associativity, skew-commutativity, and related results for multi-graded morphism rings, generalizing the well-known versions for…
Operads may be represented as symmetric monoidal functors on a small symmetric monoidal category. We discuss the axioms which must be imposed on a symmetric monoidal functor in order that it give rise to a theory similar to the theory of…
We introduce unary operadic 2-categories as a framework for operadic Grothendieck construction for categorical $\mathbb{O}$-operads, $\mathbb{O}$ being a unary operadic category. The construction is a fully faithful functor…
The category Set_* of sets and partial functions is well-known to be traced monoidal, meaning that a partial function S+U -/-> T+U can be coherently transformed into a partial function S -/-> T. This transformation is generally described in…
We establish an equivalence of homotopy theories between symmetric monoidal bicategories and connective spectra. For this, we develop the theory of $\Gamma$-objects in 2-categories. In the course of the proof we establish strictfication…
Applied category theory often studies symmetric monoidal categories (SMCs) whose morphisms represent open systems. These structures naturally accommodate complex wiring patterns, leveraging (co)monoidal structures for splitting and merging…
We establish a correspondence between modules and spans of algebras within a general monoidal 2-category $\mathfrak{C}$. Specifically, for an algebra $A$ in $\mathfrak{C}$, we construct a normalized lax 3-functor from the 2-category of…