On the cocartesian image of preorders and equivalence relations in regular categories (Q2105670)

It is well known that in a regular category \(\mathbb{E}\), the direct image of a reflexive (resp. symmetric) relation along a regular epimorphism \(f\) is a reflexive (resp. symmetric) one, which is no longer true in general for preorders and a fortiori for equivalence relations. The best preorder approximations are then their cocartesian images above \(f\) in the respective categories \(PrO\mathbb{E}\) of preorders and \(Equ\mathbb{E}\) of equivalence relations in \(\mathbb{E}\). The author [Cah. Topol. Géom. Différ. Catég. 59, No. 2, 142--194 (2018; Zbl 1404.18002)] has observed that Proposition. Let \ be a regular category and \(f:X\rightarrow Y\) a regular epimorphism. The following conditions are equivalent: \begin{itemize} \item[1.] The map \(\phi:R\rightarrow T\) is cocartesian in \(Equ\mathbb{E}\) above \(f\) in \(\mathbb{E}\); \item[2.] The map \(\phi:R\rightarrow T\) is regular epimorphism in \(Equ\mathbb{E} \) above \(f\) in \(\mathbb{E}\); \item[3.] It obtains in \(Equ\mathbb{E}\) that \[ f^{-1}(T)=R[f]\vee R \] \end{itemize} This paper aims to investigate the conditions ensuring the existence of such cocartesian map, extending investigation to the cocartesina images of preorders. The synopsis of the paper goes as follows. \begin{itemize} \item[\S 1] recalls basics of reflexive relations. \item[\S 2] addresses the distinction between direct image and concatenation image. \item[\S 3] investigates the properties of the chain \(((R,S))\), where \(R\) and \(S\) are reflexive relations. \item[\S 4] shows that any elementary topos \(\mathbb{E}\) admits cocartesian images of preorders and equivalence relations provided that any countable chain of subobjects has a supremum. \item[\S 5] gives a direct application to a certain kind of transfer of congruence modularity. \item[\S 6] shows that any \(n\)-permutable regular category admits cocartesian images of preorders and equivalence relations, which gives rise to three different kinds of characterization of these categories. \item[\S 7] is concerned with the situation where one of the intertwined chains is stationary from some level \(n\). Those properties \(T\) on \(X\) such that, for a given regular epimorphism \(f:X\rightarrow Y\), \(f(T)^{n+1}=f(T)^{n}\) obtains are characterized. \end{itemize}