The Isbell monad (Q2359936)

In [\textit{J.R. Isbell}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 72, 619--655 (1966; Zbl 0142.25401)] a process (which Lawvere later called \textit{Isbell envelope}) is described which combines in some sense the free completion and free cocompletion of a category. As the latter two can be described by the units of pseudomonads on the 2-category \textbf{CAT} having as their pseudoalgebras the complete and the cocomplete categories respectively, the paper sets as its goal the description of a \textit{Isbell monad} on \textbf{CAT} having the embedding of a category \(\mathcal{C}\) in its Isbell envelope as its unit at \(\mathcal{C}\). For this the author defines an interesting generalization of (orthogonal) factorization systems on a category, which he calls cylindrical factorization systems. A cylinder in \(\mathcal{C}\) is essentially a sort of morphism of (small) diagrams in \(\mathcal{C}\) (defined as a natural transformation between appropriately defined functors to \(\mathcal{C}\), in a slightly different way than in the erratum [\textit{P. J. Freyd} and \textit{G. M. Kelly}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 4, 121 (1974; Zbl 0278.18002)] to their `Categories of continuous functors, I'). Then a cylinder factorization system in \(\mathcal{C}\) consists of a pair of classes \(\mathcal{E}\) and \(\mathcal{M}\) of (not necessarily discrete) cocones and cones respectively which are orthogonal to each other in the appropriate sense, and for which every cylinder factorizes essentially uniquely as a cocone in \(\mathcal{E}\) followed by a cone in \(\mathcal{M}\). Call \textbf{CFS} the 2-category of categories equipped with a cylinder factorization system and with 1-cells the functors preserving the \(\mathcal{E}\)'s and the \(\mathcal{M}\)'s, and all natural transformations as 2-cells. Then the paper shows that the forgetful functor from \textbf{CFS} to \textbf{CAT} is pseudomonadic and the unit at \(\mathcal{C}\) is the embedding to its Isbell envelope with some canonical cylinder factorization system. The author notes that the Isbell monad generalises \textit{M. Korostenski} and \textit{W. Tholen}'s characterisation [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 85, No. 1, 57--72 (1993; Zbl 0778.18001)] of orthogonal factorisation systems as pseudoalgebras for the squaring monad \((-)^2\) on \textbf{CAT}. Good examples and motivations are given, and additional results are obtained from restricting the diagrams to specific types or the morphisms in \textbf{CFS}.