Quasi-commutative algebras (Q988085)

In a monoidal category \(\mathcal{C}\), monoids \(A=(A,\mu :A\otimes A\rightarrow A,\iota :I\rightarrow A)\) are sometimes called algebras. The author calls a monoid \(A\) braided when it is equipped with a Yang-Baxter operator \(R:A\otimes A\rightarrow A\otimes A\) which is natural with respect to \(\mu \) and \(\iota \); the monoid is quasicommutative when furthermore \(\mu R=\mu \) and nearly commutative when also \(R^{2}=1\). The free monoidal category containing a monoid is the algebraist's simplicial category \(\Delta \) of finite ordinals; this means that a strong monoidal functor \(A^{\ast }:\Delta \rightarrow \mathcal{C}\) is essentially a monoid \(A\) in \(\mathcal{C}\). If \(\mathcal{C}\) is braided and the monoid \(A\) is quasicommutative (when equipped with the braiding as \(R\)) then \(A^{\ast }\) lands in the category \(\mathrm{Mon}\mathcal{C}\) of monoids in \(\mathcal{C}\) and also satisfies what the author calls the covering condition. He shows that quasicommutative monoids in any monoidal category \(\mathcal{C}\) are essentially functors \(\Delta \rightarrow \mathrm{Mon}\mathcal{C}\) satisfying the covering condition; there are corresponding equivalences in the braided and nearly commutative cases. Many examples are provided: for instance, every group \(G\) is quasicommutative with respect to \(R( x,y) =(y,y^{-1}x y)\). The result is also used to identify braided structures on any group in terms of matched pairs and quasicommutative structures in terms of 1-cocycles. Finally, a description of the free braided monoidal category containing a commutative monoid is provided as a category of pruned trees of height 2 (in the sense of Michael Batanin), localized with respect to maps which are bijective on leaves.