Matrices, relations, and group representations (Q757580)

Much of the machinery developed in category theory during the 70's and 80's is put to good use here in order to attack classical problems and extract more and better information than was available before. While this is not an easy paper to read, it is ultimately a very rewarding one. The key notion that is successfully generalized is that of a commutative separable algebra. The author's original goal was to find a good notion of a ``selfdual'' object in a symmetric monoidal category, i.e., an object equipped with a commutative algebra structure and a cocommutative coalgebra structure which interact nicely. The careful choice of axioms to govern this interaction is crucial here. Besides applications to the representation theory of profinite groups, the techniques developed here are also used to give an essentially algebraic characterization of symmetric monoidal categories of relations.