Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-119/5/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 119 5 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
First supply the unlettered preliminaries. Assuming the relevant categorical limits and colimits exist, limits of shape commute with colimits of shape when for every functor the canonical mapis an isomorphism. To construct this map, for each compose the limiting projections with the th colimit injections. They form an -cone, giving a map into the right-hand categorical limit; these maps form a -cocone, giving the comparison. This specifies the actual comparison required for commutation of limits and colimits.
A group regarded as a one-object category has its group elements as arrows, with composition given by multiplication. A functor from it to the Category of sets is a group action. For a -set , a cone consists of a map into whose values are fixed by every . Hence its categorical limit is the set of fixed points of a group action. A cocone is a map out of constant on orbits of a group action; its universal quotient is the orbit set. Thus
A diagram in a category is a set with commuting group actions of and . Its limit–colimit comparison isCommutation makes stable under . The comparison is always injective: if two -fixed representatives are in the same -orbit in , they already determine the same orbit in .
For surjectivity under the finite coprime hypotheses, let be an -orbit fixed setwise by . Its size divides by the orbit-stabilizer theorem. Since the group actions commute and is transitive on , all -orbits inside have the same size : the bijection identifies the -orbits of and . Thus divides , while the orbit-stabilizer theorem also gives . The orders are coprime, so . Every point in is therefore -fixed, and lies in the image of . We have proved commutation of fixed points and orbit quotients for coprime groups:The bijection is the canonical comparison and is natural in the set with commuting group actions, so it proves the requested commutation of limits and colimits in the Category of sets.
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