Weakly distributive categories (Q674463)

A weakly distributive category is a category equipped with two tensor products, denoted by \(\otimes\) and \(\oplus\), and two weak distribution natural transformations \(A\otimes (B\oplus C) \to(A \otimes B) \oplus C\) and \({(B\oplus C) \otimes A \to B\oplus(C\otimes A)}\), satisfying coherence conditions. With more data and conditions, it can be nonplanar, \(\otimes\)-symmetric, \(\otimes\)-cartesian, \(\oplus\)-symmetric, \(\oplus\)-cartesian, symmetric, bicartesian, with negation, etc. Notice that a distributive category is generally not weakly distributive. The 2-category of weakly distributive categories is proved to be equivalent to the 2-category of two-tensor polycategories. It is shown that this weak distributivity is precisely what is needed to model Gentzen's cut rule. Many relations between different kinds of weak distributivity are established.