Incidence categories (Q616311)

Given a family \(\mathcal{F}\) of posets closed under disjoint unions and the operation of taking convex subposets, the author constructs a category \(\mathcal{C}_{\mathcal{F}}\), whose objects are in one-to-one correspondence with the posets in \(\mathcal{F}\). All morphisms of the category \(\mathcal{C}_{\mathcal{F}}\) possess kernels and cokernels, it has a null object and is equipped with a symmetric monoidal structure akin to direct sum. The author defines the Ringel-Hall algebra of the category \(\mathcal{C}_{\mathcal{F}}\) and shows that it is isomorphic to the incidence Hopf algebra of the collection of order ideals of posets in \(\mathcal{F}\). The resulting Hopf algebra is graded, connected and cocommutative and so is isomorphic to the enveloping algebra of the Lie algebra of its primitive elements. When \(\mathcal{F}\) is the family of posets coming from rooted forests or Feynman graphs, the category \(\mathcal{C}_{\mathcal{F}}\) coincides with the category introduced by Kremnizer and the author [\textit{K. Kremnizer} and \textit{M. Szczesny}, ``Feynman graphs, rooted trees, and Ringel-Hall algebras'', Commun. Math. Phys. 289, No.~2, 561--577 (2009; Zbl 1173.81008)].