Write the monad identities as
If is invertible, its two right inverses agree, so . Conversely, suppose . Naturality of at , followed by that equality at , gives
Together with this proves
This is the equivalence defining an idempotent monad.
For the equalizer submonad of a monad, let equalize and . If , naturality of these two transformations shows that equalizes the corresponding pair at . There is therefore a unique satisfying
Uniqueness gives and , so is a functor and is a natural transformation.
Take the stipulated factorizations and . Naturality of at rewrites their defining equations as
The composites on the right are natural in ; cancellation of the monic arrow therefore makes and natural. We now verify every monad law, rather than assuming that restricting the structure automatically preserves them.
For the two unit laws, naturality and the unit laws of give
Cancelling proves . For associativity, the same naturality equations give
These are equal by associativity of ; cancelling proves associativity of . Thus
The remaining claims use two split equalizers associated with a monad. First, is a split equalizer of . Its retraction is , and the splitting of the parallel pair is , since
The equalizing equation follows from naturality of . In general, identities , , and prove that is an equalizer: if , then , with unique factorization . Hence and are two equalizers of the same pair. Their comparison is , and its inverse is . In particular
Second, is a split equalizer of , with retraction and splitting . Indeed,
This is precisely the parallel pair in the PDF's diagram after . The map equalizes that pair, because applying to the defining equalizer equation gives their equality on . Put
The split-equalizer factorization and give
If is invertible, then is a monic arrow. Conversely, if is a monic arrow, the equation
forces , so is the inverse of . Therefore
Notice that, under either condition, is actually a split monomorphism, with retraction . Thus is a monic arrow too, since a functor preserves split monomorphisms. We have not assumed that preserves arbitrary monomorphisms.
Now prove the specified naturality square is a pullback in a category. Let and satisfy . Naturality of , followed by the equalizer equation for , gives
Cancel the monic arrow . Thus equalizes and factors uniquely as with . Naturality of then gives
Cancel to obtain . This is exactly existence and uniqueness in the pullback universal property.
Because the square is a pullback and is a monic arrow, is a monic arrow. Naturality of and the formula for now give
Cancelling proves . The other composite is already one of the unit laws. Hence is invertible. If the equivalent monicity conditions hold for every , we conclude
An abelian category is an additive category with kernels in a category and cokernels in a category in which the canonical comparison from coimage to image of every morphism is an isomorphism. This is the standard image-coimage form of the definition, equivalently expressed by normality of every monomorphism and epimorphism. Additivity means abelian-group hom-sets with bilinear composition, a zero object and finite biproducts. A sequence is exact at an object when the image of the incoming morphism is the kernel in a category of the outgoing one.
For , construct and . The universal properties give : first kills its kernel in a category and factors through ; then the resulting map is killed by because is epic, so it factors through . The comparison is invertible by the abelian axiom. Cokernels in a category are epic and kernels in a category monic, directly by uniqueness in their universal properties, so is epic and monic. Thus .
In a short exact sequence , we have and , up to the canonical isomorphisms. If retracts , the map kills and factors as for some . Composing with gives , so epicity gives . Conversely if , then is killed by and factors as . Composing with gives , so monicity gives . Consequently
In that case .
For the derived-functor requests, use additive right exact functors, as customary in abelian homological algebra. An abelian category with enough projectives permits an augmented projective resolution , obtained by repeatedly taking an epimorphism from a projective onto the previous kernel in a category. Apply and define
Projective lifts construct maps of resolutions; the comparison and chain-homotopy results make the construction independent of choices and functorial. For a short exact sequence, the horseshoe construction produces a degreewise split short exact sequence of resolutions, hence of their images under additive . Its homology objects give the long exact sequence
This supplies the requested sketch; detailed comparison and functoriality proofs are not needed here.
A projective object has a resolution concentrated in degree zero, so for every such . Conversely choose with projective, and take with target . Precomposition makes this covariant to the opposite category. The usual left exactness of contravariant Hom, which follows directly from the cokernel in a category universal property, says exactly that this is right exact in that opposite target. If , the long exact sequence and make monic in . Equivalently,
is epic, hence surjective, in abelian groups. The identity of has a preimage, giving a retraction of . The sequence splits, and is a direct summand of , hence projective: a lifting problem for extends along the projection , is solved for , and restricts along the summand inclusion. Therefore
This is projectivity detected by all first left derived functors. The following parts prove the three requested equivalent formulations of a hereditary abelian category with enough projectives.
Let be a finite diagram. Form the finite categorical products
There are two morphisms : their components at are and , respectively. Let be their equaliser. Then satisfy , so they constitute a cone over a diagram.
Any other cone uniquely determines . Its cone equations say precisely that . The equaliser therefore gives a unique with , and thus . Conversely these component equations force by the categorical product universal property, so there is exactly one such mediator. This proves that is a categorical limit of .
The empty categorical products are included: if is empty, and are terminal and the construction gives the empty categorical limit. Thus finite categorical products and equalisers give every finite categorical limit, as a special case of the construction of small limits from products and equalizers.
Let be a terminal object. The pullback of the unique arrows is a binary categorical product: maps and automatically have equal composites into , so the pullback universal property is exactly the categorical product universal property.
For parallel arrows , form and take the pullback of along the diagonal . Write the resulting projections as and . The pullback equation gives
If satisfies , the pair is a pullback cone, producing a unique with and . The second condition is forced by the first, since . Thus is the equaliser of .
The terminal object and iterated binary categorical products give all finite categorical products, including the nullary one. Part (a) therefore proves pullbacks and a terminal object give all finite categorical limits.
Write an object of the slice category as . Its morphisms are arrows in commuting with these structure maps, and the forgetful functor removes the structure map.
Suppose a square in the slice becomes a pullback square in , with vertex . Given a compatible pair of slice arrows and , the underlying pullback gives a unique with the required projection equations. If is one projection, then
where is the structure map. Thus is automatically a slice morphism, and underlying uniqueness gives uniqueness in the slice. Hence reflects pullbacks.
Now let be an equaliser of slice arrows . Consider any underlying arrow with . Give the structure map . Then is a slice arrow into , and the slice equaliser gives a unique with . Conversely any underlying with that equation automatically obeys , so there are no additional factorization possibilities outside the slice. Therefore has the ordinary equaliser universal property in . This proves preserves equalisers.
Write . The category of elements of a categorical presheaf has objects with ; a morphism is satisfying . It is a small category because is small and each is a set. Consider the diagram sending to and to the natural transformation given by postcomposition with .
There is a canonical cocone with
Functoriality makes it a natural transformation, and the equation makes these transformations a cocone.
To prove its universal property, let be any categorical presheaf with a compatible cocone . Define
For and , compatibility with the arrow gives
Thus is natural. Naturality of each shows . Conversely any transformation with these equations must have the displayed values , so it is unique. We have proved the canonical colimit presentation of a presheaf:
A Cartesian closed category has finite categorical products and, for every , an exponential object with an evaluation morphism such that composition with evaluation gives natural bijections
Finite categorical products in the presheaf category are pointwise; in particular its terminal object is the constant singleton categorical presheaf. For categorical presheaves define
For , restriction sends to . Composition and identity laws follow from those of the Yoneda embedding, so this is a categorical presheaf.
Define evaluation at by . For , naturality of gives , which is the evaluation of the restricted pair. Hence evaluation is a natural transformation.
Given , its currying sends to the transformation whose component at is
Naturality in follows from that of , and naturality in follows by composing with the relevant arrow. Evaluating at recovers . Conversely, if , naturality of along says that evaluating at gives . Thus currying the evaluation of recovers . These constructions are inverse and natural, proving the universal property. This is the exponential in a presheaf category, and proves the presheaf category is Cartesian closed.
The Yoneda embedding preserves categorical products: for any , maps correspond naturally to pairs of maps and . Hence . Using the exponential in a presheaf category, the Yoneda lemma and the exponential universal property in gives
Every bijection is natural in , since it is given by precomposition or the natural exponential adjunction. Thus these component bijections are a natural isomorphism of categorical presheaves:
By part (b), is the equaliser of and . Full faithfulness of the Yoneda embedding writes for a unique endomorphism . Choose an equaliser of and in .
For each , the maps are precisely the maps with . Thus is the pointwise equaliser of and , hence their equaliser in the presheaf category. Both and have the same universal property, so their vertices are isomorphic. This proves the representable retract criterion:
The Freyd general adjoint functor theorem is as follows. Let , with a complete category which is locally small. Then has a left adjoint if and only if it preserves all small categorical limits and satisfies the solution-set condition: for each , there is a set-indexed family
such that every can be written for some and some . The target category need not be complete. We prove all the existence steps.
First establish the initial-object lemma for complete categories with a weakly initial set. Let be locally small and complete, with a weakly initial set , meaning every object receives a map from at least one . Its categorical product is weakly initial: compose a categorical product projection with the map from the appropriate . Local smallness makes a set. Let be the simultaneous equaliser of every endomorphism of and the identity. Explicitly it is the equaliser of the two arrows
with components and . Thus for every endomorphism , and is monic.
Every object receives a morphism from , by composing with a map . To prove uniqueness, take parallel maps and their equaliser . Weak initiality of gives . The composite is an endomorphism of , so . Cancelling the monomorphism gives . Hence is both monic and a split epimorphism, and is therefore invertible. Since , this forces . We have proved is initial, without using a class-sized categorical product or equaliser.
For sufficiency in the theorem, fix and consider the comma category . Its objects are pairs ; a morphism satisfies . This category is locally small because each hom-set is a subset of . It is complete: for a small diagram of such pairs, take the underlying categorical limit in . The arrows from form a cone to its image under , and preservation of the categorical limit gives a unique inducing them. The same universal property gives all mediators in the comma category. The solution-set family is a weakly initial set in this comma category, so the lemma supplies an initial pair
For , initiality defines a unique satisfying . Uniqueness proves the identity and composition laws, making a functor. Initiality also gives bijections
The definition of proves naturality in , and postcomposition proves naturality in . These bijections are the required adjunction .
For necessity, if , the single arrow is a solution set: the transpose of any gives its factorization through . If is a limiting cone vertex of a small diagram in , then, naturally in ,
These are the canonical cone-factorization bijections, so with its image projections is a categorical limit of . Thus preserves all small categorical limits, completing both directions of the theorem.
For each algebra for a monad , consider the specific pair in
Then the exact condition is
Each pair is reflexive, with common section : the two composite identities follow from and . Thus existence of all reflexive coequalizers is sufficient, but the displayed specified pairs give the necessary-and-sufficient condition.
To prove it, take and its adjoint transpose . The transpose of is , by naturality of . The transpose of is
Moreover counit naturality and a triangle identity give
Because transposition is bijective, the coequalizing equation is therefore equivalent to
The right side says exactly that is a monad algebra morphism.
For sufficiency, choose a coequalizer for every monad algebra. Its universal property and the equivalence just proved give natural bijections
To see explicitly that the chosen objects form a functor, an monad algebra morphism makes coequalize the pair for : use and naturality of the counit. Hence there is a unique with . Uniqueness proves its identity and composition laws and the naturality of the displayed bijections. Thus .
Conversely, suppose with unit . Transpose its underlying arrow through to obtain . Since the unit is an monad algebra morphism, the equivalence above shows that coequalizes the specified pair. Any coequalizing transposes to an monad algebra map , which factors uniquely through the unit by . Transposing back gives a unique factorization of through . Thus is the required coequalizer. This proves both directions of the Left adjoint to the Eilenberg-Moore comparison functor criterion.
A topological group module is a topological abelian group with a jointly continuous action of by group automorphisms. Its continuous cochains with topological coefficients are
with pointwise addition. The inhomogeneous differential is
For , this means . Continuity of multiplication and of the action ensures that preserves continuous cochains. Expanding gives cancellation in pairs: the two orders of multiplying neighbouring arguments agree by associativity, and the two ways of applying the action agree by its action law. Thus . The cocycles are and the coboundaries are , with . Define
For general topological coefficients this is an algebraic quotient of the continuous cochains; its optional quotient topology need not be Hausdorff. For discrete coefficients it is the usual continuous cohomology of a profinite group. In degree zero it is the subgroup of invariant elements.
Give the discrete prime field its trivial -action. The one-cocycle condition becomes and every one-coboundary is zero. Hence
Every such group homomorphism kills powers and group commutators, hence their closure , and every continuous functional on the quotient pulls back. If is topologically finitely generated, is a finite elementary abelian group. To verify finiteness without assuming it, the closure of a subgroup generated by elements of this abelian exponent- quotient has at most elements; a finite subgroup is already closed. Thus is a finite-dimensional vector space. Question 2 says that a generating family of is minimal precisely when its images give a basis of . The dual space has the same finite dimension. This proves
There is a genuine missing hypothesis if the printed assertion is read for arbitrary pro-p groups and means the least cardinality of any dense generating family. Here is an explicit infinite-rank failure of the first-cohomology generator formula. Let and . Enumerate the finite binary strings as and define if is a prefix of , and otherwise. For finitely many distinct sequences , choose long enough prefixes to distinguish each individually. The corresponding project onto the coordinate unit vectors of , so surjects onto every finite coordinate projection and is dense in the product topology. No finite family can generate densely, since a finitely generated abelian exponent- subgroup is finite and closed. Thus . On the other hand, continuity of a linear functional to means its kernel contains a basic neighbourhood, so it depends on finitely many coordinates. The coordinate projections are consequently a basis of the continuous dual space, giving
The unrestricted infinite-rank formula is false. A convention requiring a generating basis tending to the identity is different from the printed unrestricted topological generator count; the finite-rank identity proved above has no such ambiguity.
For finite , a free pro-p group is characterized by the universal property that every map to a pro-p group extends uniquely to a continuous group homomorphism . It is the pro-p completion of the abstract free group on : each map to a finite -group factors through one of the defining finite quotients, and passing to the inverse limit gives the extension to any pro-p group; uniqueness follows from density. This unrestricted universal property can also define the completion on an arbitrary set . When using an infinite basis required to tend to the identity, one instead imposes the universal property only for maps tending to the identity. Only the finite-rank version is needed for the following argument.
A finite pro-p presentation is an isomorphism
There are finitely many generators and finitely many relators, and the denominator is their closed normal closure. The relators are elements of the free pro-p group; they may be limits of ordinary words. That distinction is important when writing conjugation relations below.
Now suppose has a finite pro-p presentation with generators and relators . The quotient is a finite p-group. Choose a finite finite pro-p presentation . Such a presentation exists, for example by using its entire finite multiplication table. Lift the quotient generators to . For every , choose elements of the free pro-p group on the that map respectively to and in . Choose mapping to , which lies in . Form the finite finite pro-p presentation
All listed relations hold in , giving a continuous surjective group homomorphism : its compact image contains and maps onto .
Let be the closed subgroup of topologically generated by the . Both conjugation directions were included, so each normalizes . The also normalize it, and its closed normalizer contains the generators of . Thus . The relations give a continuous surjection . Its composite with induced by fixes every , and hence is the identity. Therefore the surjection is injective as well, so . On quotienting by , the conjugation and kernel relations disappear, and the remaining presentation is exactly . Thus is an isomorphism. The kernel of lies in and meets trivially, so is trivial. Consequently , proving
The Yoneda embedding is an exact representation of a category, but does not by itself reduce the subject to the study of arbitrary functor categories. There are both a size issue and a structure issue.
Let be a locally small category and set . For a categorical presheaf , a natural transformation is determined by . Indeed, naturality along forces
Conversely this formula defines a natural transformation for each , since functoriality gives naturality along every . Taking gives
Thus the Yoneda embedding is full and faithful, and is equivalent to its full subcategory of representable presheaves. The indexing category in the usual version is , not necessarily a small category chosen independently of .
Local smallness makes the values sets; it does not make the collection of objects a set. For a large indexing category, the collection of natural transformations between arbitrary set-valued functors can itself be a proper class. For example, take the discrete category on the class of ordinals and the constant two-element functor. Its endomorphisms include an independently chosen function at each ordinal. A small functor category cannot encode this collection without changing universes. The Yoneda lemma remains meaningful when the source is representable because the displayed bijection identifies its natural transformations with a set. It does not make the entire large functor category locally small.
Even for a small category, the representable image is usually a very special part of its presheaf category. If is the terminal category, its presheaf category is , but its representable image consists only of a singleton. The presheaf category has all small categorical limits and colimits, whereas an arbitrary full subcategory need have almost none. The Yoneda embedding preserves existing limits because representable functors preserve limits. It generally does not preserve colimits. For example, the coproduct of two singleton sets in category of finite sets is a two-element set, but evaluating the proposed presheaf coproduct at a two-element set gives
The pointwise coproduct therefore leaves the representable image. Identifying which presheaves are representable, and which ambient constructions return to the original category, is precisely substantive category theory.
The representation is nonetheless powerful. The Yoneda lemma replaces a morphism by all its probes, converts a universal property into a representation of a functor, and makes the presheaf category a natural place to add formal colimits. A small presheaf category is the free free cocompletion under small colimits: every presheaf is a colimit of representables indexed by its category of elements. But this is a controlled enlargement of the category, not an identification of its original objects with all functors. The stronger conclusion in the proposed assertion therefore does not follow from the full-faithfulness statement.
For a diagram , a limit-preserving functor carries every limiting cone over a diagram to a limiting categorical cone. A limit-reflecting functor has the converse property: a categorical cone is limiting whenever its image is limiting. A limit-creating functor uniquely lifts every specified limiting categorical cone over the image diagram to a categorical cone over , and the lift is limiting. These definitions concern diagrams of the stipulated shape; creation includes the lifting requirement, not merely reflection.
Let be a categorical limit of . The map
is a bijection: the right side consists exactly of compatible families of arrows from , and the categorical limit's universal property gives their unique factorization through . The bijection is induced by the categorical limit projections, so it proves that covariant representables preserve limits, including the empty diagram and its terminal object.
Construct pointwise limits in a functor category. For , choose at each object a categorical limit of , with projections . For , the family is compatible; define uniquely by
The universal property gives and , since those equalities hold after every projection. Thus is a functor, and each is a natural transformation.
For any categorical cone , the pointwise categorical limits give unique maps . To check naturality, compose and with every ; both become . The projections distinguish arrows into their categorical limit, so the two maps agree. Componentwise uniqueness gives uniqueness of the natural transformation . This proves that really is the required categorical limit, rather than merely a family of objectwise candidates.
A specified categorical limit categorical cone in fixes these objectwise vertices and projections. The displayed equation forces every arrow , and the argument forces every categorical cone factorization. Hence the forgetful functor uniquely lifts that categorical cone and is a limit-creating functor. The construction only takes small categorical limits in ; it does not require to be small. As usual, the functor categories are understood in a universe where their collections of transformations are meaningful.
If is representable, it is a limit-preserving functor, and its universal element gives an initial object of , hence a weakly initial singleton.
Conversely, a limit-preserving makes a complete category. For a small diagram , take in . Its distinguished elements form a compatible family in . Categorical limit preservation gives a unique with . The underlying categorical limit factorization of a categorical cone preserves this element, proving the comma-category universal property. For the empty diagram, this uses . This is the construction of limits in a comma category of a limit-preserving functor.
The comma category is locally small since its arrows are subsets of the hom-sets in . By the previous part, its weakly initial set therefore yields an initial object. Part (b) then yields a representation of . Thus representability from a solution set follows with all small categorical limits, rather than finite categorical limits alone.
Fix the chosen categorical limit object and its categorical cone . For , the family
is a categorical cone, by naturality of . The universal property of supplies a unique morphism
The identity morphism of satisfies the equations for , so . For composable , the equations for agree with those for ; uniqueness gives . Hence the chosen limits define a functor . This argument also handles an empty indexing category, when each chosen categorical limit is a terminal object.
Equivalently, represents the categorical cone functor , and functoriality of chosen representations supplies the same .
Conversely, assume that every hom-set functor preserves existing categorical limits. For a categorical limit cone in , a categorical cone determines an element of . The assumed bijection
gives one and only one such for every and every categorical cone. That is the universal property of the image cone itself. Therefore the hom-set tests detect limit preservation:
This proof works for all diagram sizes for which the relevant categorical limits and compatible-family sets are under consideration.
The representing object in the functor category is the constant diagram in a category . If is the chosen categorical limit cone, the natural bijection is
A natural transformation from the constant diagram in a category is precisely a categorical cone with vertex , and its inverse is the unique mediating morphism from the universal property of the categorical limit. For , the defining equations for show that postcomposition by corresponds to postcomposition by on the right. This establishes naturality in and proves representability by the constant diagram.
Regard the bifunctor as . Its pointwise categorical limit satisfies
with its action on morphisms obtained by the construction in part (a). Applying the limit-preservation result from part (d) gives
The comparison isomorphism is canonical relative to the chosen categorical limit cones: it is the unique morphism identifying all the projections to . This proves commutation of iterated categorical limits, including an empty or . Equivalently, both iterated constructions have the universal property of the categorical limit of on .