Restriction categories as enriched categories (Q2435310)

This paper deals with the notion of restriction category. A restriction category is a category \(\mathcal{C}\) equipped with an operation assigning to each map \(f:A\to B\) in \(\mathcal{C}\) a map \(\overline{f}:A\to A\) subject to the four axioms: \(f\overline{f}=f\), \(\overline{f}\overline{g}=\overline{g}\overline{f}\), \(\overline{g\overline{f}}=\overline{g}\overline{f}\) for all \(f:A\to B\) and \(g:A\to C\) and \(\overline{g}f=f\overline{gf}\) for all \(f:A\to B\) and \(g:B\to C\). The trivial restriction structure is defined by \(\overline{f}\) to be equal to the identity of \(A\) for all \(f:A\to B\). A non-trivial example of such a structure is the category of sets and partial functions, where to each partial function \(f:A\rightharpoonup B\), there is assigned the partial function \(\overline{f}:A\rightharpoonup A\) defined by taking \(\overline{f}(a)\) to be \(a\) if \(f(a)\) is defined and to be undefined otherwise. It is proved that restriction categories can be seen as a kind of enriched category, not based on a monoidal category, but rather a weak double category in the sense of Grandis-Paré. Using this result, it is shown that by varying the base of this enrichment, the notion of join and range restriction category can be understood in the same manner.