Closure of normal monomorphisms forces abelianness

ID: closure-of-normal-monomorphisms-forces-abelianness

In an additive category with finite categorical limits and colimits in which every epimorphism is a conormal epimorphism, closure of normal monomorphisms under composition forces every monomorphism to be normal. To prove this, write a monomorphism as , where , and put . If were normal, would force , hence would be an isomorphism. This makes , so is epic as well as monic. An epic monomorphism which is a cokernel is invertible, forcing to be normal. Contrapositively, any failure of normality provides two normal monomorphisms whose composite is not normal.

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