Pretorsion theories in general categories (Q2196361)

The aim of this article is to introduce a notion of (pre)torsion theory for arbitrary categories. The authors define (see Definition 2.6) a \textit{pretorsion theory} in a category \(\mathcal{C}\) to be a pair of full replete subcategories \((\mathcal{T}, \mathcal{F})\) such that (1) Every morphism from \(\mathcal{T}\) to \(\mathcal{F}\) factors through \(\mathcal{T} \cap \mathcal{F}\) (2) For every object \(C \in \mathcal{C}\) there is a \textit{short \((\mathcal{T} \cap \mathcal{F})\)-preexact sequence} (see \S 2) \[ T \overset{f}{\to} C \overset{g}{\to}F. \] That is, a sequence with \(T \in \mathcal{T}\), \(F \in \mathcal{F}\) where \(f\) (resp. \(g\)) behaves like a kernel (resp. cokernel) of \(g\) (resp. \(f\)) with respect to morphisms factoring through \(\mathcal{T} \cap \mathcal{F}\). The idea is that as, in general, a category \(\mathcal{C}\) is not pointed the objects of \(\mathcal{T} \cap \mathcal{F}\) instead play the role of the zero object. Many familiar properties of torsion theories carry from the classical setting of abelian categories: \(\mathcal{T}\) is closed under coproducts that exist (see Proposition 4.3). The sequence in (2) is essentially unique (see Proposition 3.1) and the assignment for \(C \mapsto T\) defines a functor \(\mathcal{C} \to \mathcal{T}\) that is left inverse right adjoint to the embedding \(\mathcal{T} \to \mathcal{C}\) (see Proposition 3.3). In particular \(\mathcal{T}\) is a coreflective subcategory of \(\mathcal{C}\) such that the counit of this adjunction is a monomorphism (see Corollary 3.4) and in Proposition 4.5 the authors characterise subcategories \(\mathcal{T}'\) giving rise to pretorsion theories \((\mathcal{T}', \mathcal{F}')\) by studying these properties. The subcategory \(\mathcal{F}\) enjoys all the dual properties. In Section 5 the authors give special attention is given to the situation where \(\mathcal{T} \cap \mathcal{F}\) consists of projective (with respect to epimorphisms) objects. Section 6 is devoted to presenting many examples of pretorsion theories in the categories of preordered sets, endomappings of (in)finite sets, finite linearly ordered sets, topological groups and (totally disconnected) topological spaces. In Section 7 and the introduction, the authors discuss the relation of their work to others in the literature. In particular to the articles [\textit{M. Grandis} and \textit{G. Janelidze}, Categ. Gen. Algebr. Struct. Appl. 12, No. 1, 89--121 (2020; Zbl 1454.18008)] and [\textit{M. Grandis} et al., J. Aust. Math. Soc. 94, No. 3, 348--361 (2013; Zbl 1291.18002)]. An example is given showing that the the content of this article is distinct.