A theorem on Barr-exact categories, with an infinitary generalization (Q922544)

The theorem in question states that a small Barr-exact category C is recoverable up to equivalence from its category of mdels (that is, regular functors \(C\to Set)\); it shows that, up to isomorphism, the functors Reg(C,Set)\(\to Set\) which preserve all small products and filtered colimits are just the functors ``evaluate at A'' for A an object of C. This is on the one hand a sharpening of M. Barr's full embedding theorem for exact categories, and on the other a strengthening of the author's own work on strong conceptual completeness [Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 40, 167-215 (1988; Zbl 0669.03037)], restricted to the class of regular theories. The infinitary version establishes the corresponding result for \(\kappa\)-Barr-exact categories and \(\kappa\)-regular functors, where \(\kappa\) is an infinite regular cardinal; here a Barr-exact category is called \(\kappa\)-Barr-exact if it has limits of cardinality less than \(\kappa\) and satisfies a ``principle of \(<\kappa\) dependent choices'' which says, roughly, that limits of inverse sequences of regular epimorphisms of length less than \(\kappa\) are regular epimorphisms, and a regular functor is \(\kappa\)-regular if it preserves limits of cardinality less than \(\kappa\). Applications are given to particular classes of exact categories such as abelian categories and pretoposes. Sample result: if two rings have equivalent categories of injective left modules, then they are Morita equivalent.