question about discrete op-fibrations
Hi all, Here's a quick question perhaps someone here can answer easily. Let DOF denote the category whose objects are small categories C,D, etc. and in which Hom(C,D) is the set of discrete op-fibrations C-->D. For a category C, let DOF_{C/} denote the coslice over C. Question: Does there exist a terminal object in DOF_{C/}? Thanks! David [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
Dear David I'll assume by the coslice DOF_{C/} you mean the category whose objects are discrete opfibrations C --> D, and whose arrows are strictly commuting triangles under C. In that case the answer to your question is no. When C is empty, DOF_{C/} is just your category DOF, of small categories and discrete opfibrations between them, and DOF lacks a terminal object. For suppose that D is terminal in DOF. Then for any set X, there is a discrete opfibration I(X) --> D, where I(X) is the category obtained from X by freely adding an initial object. That is, the objects of I(X) are the elements of X together with one additional object 0, and one has a unique arrow 0 --> x for all x in X. If F:I(X) --> D is a discrete opfibration, then F(0) is an object of D such that the cardinality of the set of all arrows with source F(0) is that of X. Thus since D is terminal in DOF, for any set X there is an object x of D such that the cardinality of the set of all arrows with source x is that of X. This contradicts the smallness of D. With best regards, Mark Weber On 01/02/2012, at 11:03 AM, David Spivak <dspivak@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Here's a quick question perhaps someone here can answer easily.
Let DOF denote the category whose objects are small categories C,D, etc. and in which Hom(C,D) is the set of discrete op-fibrations C-->D. For a category C, let DOF_{C/} denote the coslice over C.
Question: Does there exist a terminal object in DOF_{C/}?
Thanks! David
[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
David Spivak hat am 31.01.12 geschrieben:
Let DOF denote the category whose objects are small categories C,D, etc. and in which Hom(C,D) is the set of discrete op-fibrations C-->D. For a category C, let DOF_{C/} denote the coslice over C.
Question: Does there exist a terminal object in DOF_{C/}?
Answer: No. The "op-" is irrelevant; let us look at DF_{C/} instead. There is not even a weakly terminal object, for the same reason for which there isn't one in DF itself. (Suppose (T,z) is one. Let A be an arbitrary small category having a terminal object a. From the object (C+A,incl) of DF_{C/} we get a discrete fibration f : A-->T. But then for t = f(a) the slice category T_{/t} is isomorphic to A. There are not enough t to accommodate all possible A.) Thorsten Palm [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
participants (3)
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David Spivak -
Mark Weber -
Thorsten Palm