The stable category of preorders in a pretopos. I: General theory (Q2125158)

\textit{A. Facchini} and \textit{C. A. Finocchiaro} [Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4) 199, No. 3, 1073--1089 (2020; Zbl 1481.18002)] observed that, in the category, \(\mathsf{PreOrd}\), of pre-ordered sets, there is a natural pretorsion theory, \(\mathsf{(Eq,ParOrd})\), where \( \mathsf{Eq}\) is the `torsion subcategory' of equivalence relations and \(\mathsf{ParOrd}\) is the `torsion-free' subcategory of partial orders. Writing \(\mathcal{Z}\) for \(\mathsf{Eq\cap ParOrd}\), and calling a morphism \(\mathcal{Z}\)-trivial if it factors via an object in \(\mathcal{Z}\), this just amounts to the observations that any morphism from an equivalence relation to a partial order is \(\mathcal{Z}\)-trivial, whilst any preorder fits in a canonical \(\mathcal{Z}\)-trivial exact sequence, analogous to the torsion subobject / torsion-free quotient exact sequence in a classical torsion theoretic setting. In the present paper, starting with a coherent category, \(\mathbb{C}\), the authors extend the above analysis to the category, \(\mathsf{PreOrd}(\mathbb{C})\), of internal preorders in \(\mathbb{C}\) Their analysis includes the study of the corresponding `stable' category, \(\mathsf{Stab}(\mathbb{C})\), obtained by replacing morphisms between preorders by partial morphisms whilst keeping the same objects as in \(\mathsf{PreOrd}(\mathbb{C})\). This is then applied to a class of pretoposes and certain properties are singled out, which will be the subject of a second article on this topic, and which will not be given here. These properties will be used to prove a universal property for the stable category construction.