Betweenness relations in a categorical setting

DOI10.1007/S00025-017-0671-YMaRDI QIDQ2407007zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Jorge L. Bruno, Paul J. Szeptycki, Aisling E. McCluskey

Publication date 4 October 2017

Published in Results in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.05348, http://hdl.handle.net/10379/10568

betweenness relations category theory Fraïssé classes

Abstract: We apply a categorical lens to the study of betweenness relations by capturing them within a topological category, fibred in lattices, and study several subcategories of it. In particular, we show that its full subcategory of finite objects forms a Fraiss'{e} class implying the existence of a countable homogenous betweenness relation. We furthermore show that the subcategory of antisymmetric betweenness relations is reflective. As an application we recover the reflectivity of distributive complete lattices within complete lattices, and we end with some observations on the Dedekind-MacNeille completion.

Review text

This is a category-theoretic look at certain betweenness relations, called R-relations, which satisfy the following four axioms: \([a,b,b]\), \([a,b,c]\Rightarrow [c,b,a]\), \([a,b,a]\Rightarrow a=b\), and \([a, b, c]\wedge [a, d, c]\wedge [b, x, d]\Rightarrow [a,x,c]\). With morphisms as betweenness-presevring functions, the class of all R-relations form a category \({\mathbf R}\). By showing that the class of finite R-structures has both the Joint Embedding Property and the Amalgamation Property, the authors conclude that the class of finite R-structures is a Fraïssé class. An R-relation is said to be antisymmetric if it satisfies \([a, b, c]\wedge [a, c, b]\Rightarrow b=c\). With \({\mathbf A}\) denoting the full subcategory of \({\mathbf R}\) whose objects are antisymmetric R- relations, it is shown that \({\mathbf A}\) is a reflective, but not coreflective, subcategory of \({\mathbf R}\). Some connections between certain R-relations and complete lattices, as well as a remark on the Dedekind-MacNeille completion round out this paper.

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