A categorical approach to cyclic duality. (Q446422)

The main result of this paper is an analog of Connes's cyclic duality. The starting point of the paper is the following elementary observation. Consider the 2-category \(\mathcal T\) freely generated by a monad. \(\mathcal T\) has a single 0-cell \(o\), a non-identity 1-cell \(t\colon o\to o\) and its iterated horizontal composites, and 2-cell given by composites of non-identity 2-cells \(\eta\colon o\to t\) and \(\mu\colon t\circ t\to t\) satisfying the usual associativity and unit conditions. Monads then correspond to 2-functors \(K\colon\mathcal T\to\mathbf{Cat}\). The monad corresponding to \(K\) is \((Kt,K\mu,K\eta)\) on the category \(Ko\). Similar constructions can be performed, where the 2-category \(\mathcal T\) is replaced by a more complicated 2-category. An important example is the 2-category \(\mathcal S\), with three 0-cells \(o\), \(c\) and \(d\), generated by two monads on \(o\) related by a distributive law \(\phi\) and a \(\mathcal S(\phi,c)\) algebra in \(\mathcal S(o,c)\) and a \(\mathcal S(d,\phi)\)-algebra in \(\mathcal S(d,o)\). Then the authors consider the category \(\mathcal A\). It is the opposite of the category of 2-functors from \(\mathcal S\) to \(\mathbf{Cat}\). The first main result of the paper is the existence of a functor \(\mathcal Z^*\colon\mathcal A\to\overline{\mathcal P}\), the category of para-cocyclic objects in the category of functors. As a consequence, every object of \(\mathcal A\) determines a functor from a category \(\mathcal D\) to the category of para-cocyclic objects in a category \(\mathcal C\). This provides a powerful tool to construct para-cocyclic objects, which is illustrated by a list of eight examples; some of these examples already appear in the literature, but here they are presented within a unified framework. For example, one can associate an object of \(\mathcal A\) to any left module algebra over a left bialgebroid. In a similar way, we can construct para-cyclic objects. To this end, let \(\mathcal B\) be the opposite category of 2-functors from the vertical opposite of the 2-category \(\mathcal S\) to \(\mathbf{Cat}\), and let \(\underline{\mathcal P}\) be the category of para-cyclic objects in the category of functors. Then there is a functor \(\mathcal Z_*\colon\mathcal B\to\underline{\mathcal P}\). Again, this is illustrated by a list of 8 examples, parallel to the list in para-cocyclic case. The final main result is now a duality theorem that connects the two constructions. The categories \(\mathcal A\) and \(\mathcal B\) have full subcategories \(\mathcal A^\times\) and \(\mathcal B^\times\) consisting of objects having the property that the structure natural transformations are isomorphisms, and these have in turn two other full subcategories \(\mathcal A^\times_c\) and \(\mathcal B^\times_c\). Then there are functors \(\mathcal A^\times_c\to\mathcal B^\times\) and \(\mathcal B^\times_c\to\mathcal A^\times\) that are compatible with \(\mathcal Z^*\) and \(\mathcal Z_*\) up to natural isomorphism. This duality can be specialized for each of the 8 examples.