Relative symmetric monoidal closed categories. I: Autoenrichment and change of base (Q2808142)

One of the novelties of [\textit{S. Eilenberg} and \textit{G. M. Kelly}, in: Proc. Conf. Categor. Algebra, La Jolla 1965, 421--562 (1966; Zbl 0192.10604)] was to organise the development of enriched category theory in terms of 2-categories and 2-functors. Half a century on, the present paper adds to that development in the same spirit.NEWLINENEWLINEFix a symmetric monoidal closed category \(\mathscr{V}\). Write \(\underline{\mathscr{V}}\) for the \(\mathscr{V}\)-category obtained from the internal hom; this is the autoenrichment referred to in the paper's title. A monoidal \(\mathscr{V}\)-functor \(S : \mathscr{M}\to \mathscr{N}\) is called normal when the \(\mathscr{V}\)-natural transformation \(\theta^S : \mathscr{M}(I,-)\to \mathscr{N}(I,S-)\), corresponding under Yoneda to \(S\)'s unit constraint \(I\to SI\), is invertible; this agrees with \textit{G. M. Kelly}'s terminology in [Lect. Notes Math. 420, 257--280 (1974; Zbl 0334.18004)] when \(\mathscr{V} = \mathrm{Set}\). In particular, \(U^{\mathscr{M}}=\mathscr{M}(I,-) : \mathscr{M}\to \underline{\mathscr{V}}\) is normal monoidal. The author proves that any symmetric monoidal closed \(\mathscr{V}\)-category \(\mathscr{M}\) is isomorphic as such to \(U^{\mathscr{M}}_*\underline{\mathscr{M}}\). This means that such \(\mathscr{M}\) can be recovered up to isomorphism from the symmetric monoidal closed (mere) category \(\mathscr{M}_0\) and the monoidal (mere) functor \(\mathscr{M}(I,-) : \mathscr{M}_0 \to \mathscr{V}\).NEWLINENEWLINEA main result is that the object assignment, taking \(G : \mathscr{M} \to \mathscr{V}\) to its canonical enrichment \(\grave{G} : G_*\underline{\mathscr{M}} \to \underline{\mathscr{V}}\), gives a 2-functor from the lax slice of the 2-category of symmetric monoidal closed categories over \(\mathscr{V}\) to the lax slice of the 2-category of symmetric monoidal closed \(\mathscr{V}\)-categories over \(\underline{\mathscr{V}}\). This is result is applied to enrich adjunctions between symmetric monoidal closed categories. An algebro-geometric example arises from a scheme morphism.