Sunday, 25 April 2010

ct.category theory - If F is left adjoint to G, when does FG preserve limits? When do counits interchange with limits?

Motivation



Suppose that FcolonXtoA is left adjoint to GcolonAtoX, and let
varepsiloncolonFGstackrel.toIA be the counit of the adjunction.
Suppose also that A is J-complete (for some category J), so that
operatornameLim is a functor CJtoC, where for an arrow
alphacolonT1stackrel.toT2 of CJ,
operatornameLim(alpha) is the unique arrow of A for which the
following diagram is commutative:



begin{matrix} operatorname{Lim}(T_1)& stackrel{text{limiting cone}}{longrightarrow} & T_1\ | & & |\  operatorname{Lim}(alpha) & &  alpha\ downarrow & & downarrow \ operatorname{Lim}(T_2)& stackrel{text{limiting cone}}{longrightarrow} & T_2 end{matrix}



Let TcolonJtoA be a functor. We have the natural transformation
varepsilonTcolonFGTstackrel.toT, and
operatornameLim(varepsilonT) is the dotted line making the
following diagram commutative:



begin{matrix} operatorname{Lim}(FGT)& stackrel{text{limiting cone}}{longrightarrow} & FGT\ | & & |\  operatorname{Lim}(varepsilon T) & &  varepsilon T\ downarrow & & downarrow \ operatorname{Lim}(T)& stackrel{text{limiting cone}}{longrightarrow} & T end{matrix}



If FG preserves J-limits, and
taucolonoperatornameLim(T)stackrel.toT is the lower limiting cone,
then FGtaucolonFGoperatornameLim(T)stackrel.toFGT is the upper
limiting cone, and the above diagram becomes



begin{matrix} FGoperatorname{Lim}(T)& stackrel{FGtau}{longrightarrow} & FGT\ | & & |\  operatorname{Lim}(varepsilon T) & &  varepsilon T\ downarrow & & downarrow \ operatorname{Lim}(T)& stackrel{tau}{longrightarrow} & T end{matrix}



Since the naturality of varepsilon implies that for all jinoperatornameobj(J) the diagram
begin{matrix} FGoperatorname{Lim}(T)& stackrel{FGtau_j}{longrightarrow} & FGT(j)\ | & & |\ varepsilon_{mathrm{Lim}T}& &  varepsilon_{T(j)}\ downarrow & & downarrow \ operatorname{Lim}(T)& stackrel{tau_j}{longrightarrow} & T(j) end{matrix}



is commutative, it follows that varepsilonmathrmLimT
can replace operatornameLim(varepsilonT) in the last but one
diagram while keeping it commutative. By uniqueness, we get
the nice equation
varepsilonmathrmLimT=operatornameLim(varepsilonT).


Note that it seems that all depends on FG preserving J limits.



Question



If FcolonXtoA is left adjoint to GcolonAtoX and A has J-limits,
when does FG preserve J-limits?
This is obviously true when F preserves limits (for example, when
there is also a left adjoint to F), but are there other interesting
situations?



Background



For solving an exercise from Mac Lane, I used some
results from A. Gleason, ''Universally locally connected
refinements,'' Illinois J. Math, vol. 7 (1963), pp. 521--531. In that
paper, Gleason constructs a right adjoint to the inclusion functor
mathbfLconnsubsetmathbfTop (mathbfLconn= locally
connected spaces with continuous maps), and proves that the counit
of the product of two topological spaces is the product of the
counits (Theorem C). This made me curious when do counits
and limits interchange.

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