Formulas and ultraproducts in categories (Q787978)

In this paper the authors demonstrate convincingly how categorical methods can be used to investigate certain problems in universal algebra and model theory. Generalizing the concepts of implications and implicationally defined classes of algebras, as defined by B. Banaschewski and the reviewer [Houston J. Math. 2, 149-171 (1976; Zbl 0344.18002)], the authors introduce, for arbitrary classes H and S of morphisms of a category C, the concepts of small HS-cones and of full subcategories of C, axiomatizable by small HS-cones. Their main theorem states that under mild conditions on C, H, and S a full subcategory A of C is axiomatizable by small HS-cones if and only if \(A=HSP_ uA\), where H, S, and \(P_ u\) denote, respectively, the operations of forming H- images, S-subobjects, and ultraproducts. Several classical results, such as Birkhoff's characterization of quasivarieties, are corollaries of this result.