Orbits and monoids in a topos (Q1318786)

By an orbit in a topos \({\mathcal E}\) (which is not assumed to have a natural numbers object), the authors mean an object \(X\) of \({\mathcal E}\) equipped with an endomorphism \(t\colon X\to X\) and a global element \(x_ 0\colon 1\to X\) such that there is no proper subobject of \(X\) which contains \(x_ 0\) and is stable under \(t\). They proceed to investigate notions such as cyclic element and fixed point including finiteness (meaning Kuratowski finiteness) conditions, as well as studying the category \(\text{Orb} ({\mathcal E})\) of orbits in \({\mathcal E}\). Among the results obtained are a characterization theorem for Boolean toposes in terms of these notions, as well as the result that if \({\mathcal E}\) admits the free group on one generator 1, then the submonoid generated by 1 is a natural numbers object for \({\mathcal E}\).