Coherence for categorified operadic theories

Gould, Miles Richard (2008) Coherence for categorified operadic theories. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Given an algebraic theory which can be described by a (possibly symmetric) operad P, we propose a definition of the weakening (or categorification) of the theory, in which
equations that hold strictly for P -algebras hold only up to coherent isomorphism. This generalizes the theories of monoidal categories and symmetric monoidal categories, and
several related notions defined in the literature. Using this definition, we generalize the result that every monoidal category is monoidally equivalent to a strict monoidal category, and show that the “strictification” functor has an interesting universal property, being left
adjoint to the forgetful functor from the category of strict P -categories to the category of weak P -categories. We further show that the categorification obtained is independent of our choice of presentation for P , and extend some of our results to many-sorted theories,
using multicategories.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: category theory, universal algebra, categorification, higher-dimensional algebra, monoidal categories, operads, linear theories, strongly regular theories, strictification, coherence
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Mathematics and Statistics > Mathematics
• Supervisor's Name: Leinster, Dr. Tom
• Date of Award: 2008
• Depositing User: Mr Miles Gould
• Unique ID: glathesis:2008-689
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Apr 2009
• Last Modified: 10 Dec 2012 13:24
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/689