Weak Hopf monoids in braided monoidal categories. (Q1025422)

Various definitions of weak bialgebras and weak Hopf algebras are in the literature. The Introduction of the paper under review compares the authors' definition and terminology with that of other authors. In their paper, a weak bialgebra has a multiplication \(m\) and a comultiplication \(d\) such that \(d\) is a multiplicative map. There is a unit morphism and a counit morphism, but the unit is not necessarily a coalgebra morphism, nor the counit an algebra morphism. Rather weakened versions of these properties are required. Every weak bialgebra has a source morphism \(s\) and a target morphism \(t\). A weak Hopf algebra is a weak bialgebra with an antipode satisfying properties involving \(s\) and \(t\) which are weaker than the usual properties of an antipode in a Hopf algebra. The paper defines and studies weak bialgebras (``weak bimonoids'') and weak Hopf algebras (``weak Hopf monoids'') in a category \(V\). The axioms are expressed diagrammatically. \(s\) and \(t\) are chosen so that \(ts=s\) and \(st=t\), the source comonoid and target subcomonoid coincide (up to isomorphism), denoted by \(C\), and \(s\colon A\to C^o\) and \(t\colon A\to C\) are comonoid morphisms. Let \(QV\) be the completion of \(C\). If \(A\) is a weak bimonoid in \(QV\), \(C\) is found by splitting \(s\) or \(t\). \(C\) is a separable Frobenius monoid in \(QV\), i.e., a Frobenius monoid with the composite of the multiplication and the comultiplication equal to the identity morphism of \(C\). Using the treatment of \textit{B. Day} and the second author [Fields Inst. Commun. 43, 187-225 (2004; Zbl 1067.18006)], a quantum category in \(V\) consists of two comonoids \(A\) and \(C\), \(A\) playing the role of the object of morphisms, and \(C\) playing the role of objects-of-objects. See Section 5.2 of the paper under review for a precise definition. The paper under review establishes a bijection between weak bimonoids and quantum categories for which the object-of-objects is a separable Frobenius monoid. For a weak Hopf monoid, a quantum groupoid is produced. A quantum groupoid is a quantum category with an antipode coming from a *-autonomous structure, as discussed by \textit{M. Barr} [Theor. Comput. Sci. 139, No. 1-2, 115-130 (1995; Zbl 0874.18004)]. A precise definition is in Section 5.3 of the paper under review.