Direct products/sums: when the associated morphisms are epi/mono

olivierd

Jul 20, 2017 3 min read

Direct products/sums: when the associated morphisms are epi/mono

Exercise 7 (Chapter 2, “Categories”):

In the category of sets, the two morphisms ( $\alpha$ and $\beta$ ) in a direct product are monomorphisms and the two morphisms in a direct sum are epimorphisms. Is this true in every category?

There are two mistakes in this wording.

The author has exchanged “monomorphisms” and “epimorphisms”. In a direct product of sets, the morphisms are generally not monomorphisms (injective), and in a direct sum of sets, they are generally not epimorphisms (surjective).
In a direct product of sets, the morphisms are almost always epimorphisms. If one of the sets is empty, the product is empty, and the morphism associated with the other set (an empty mapping) is not an epimorphism; unless this other set is empty too.

The general theorem I will prove is this:

Let $A$ and $B$ be objects of a category $\mathfrak C$ , and $(P, \alpha, \beta)$ a $\mathfrak C$ -direct product of $A$ and $B$ . If $\Mor(A, B)$ is not empty then $\alpha$ is an epimorphism.

We consider the above conditions satisfied. There exists a morphism $\gamma: A \to B$ .

Let $\alpha'$ be the identity morphism $A \to A$ and $\beta'$ the morphism $\gamma: A \to B$ . Applying the universal property of the direct product $(P, \alpha, \beta)$ to the triplet $(A, \alpha', \beta')$ , we obtain that there exists a unique $\epsilon: A \to P$ such that both $\alpha' = \alpha \circ \epsilon$ and $\beta' = \beta \circ \epsilon$ .

The first of these two relations says that $\alpha \circ \epsilon$ is the identity on $A$ . If we have an object $X$ and two morphisms $\phi_1$ and $\phi_2$ from $A$ to $X$ such that $\phi_1 \circ \alpha = \phi_2 \circ \alpha$ , then, composing this relation on the right with $\epsilon$ and eliminating the resulting identity morphisms, we get $\phi_1 = \phi_2$ . Hence $\alpha$ is an epimorphism. $\blacksquare$

We obtain, of course, a similar result exchanging the roles of $A$ and $B$ .

Reversing the arrows, we get the corresponding result for direct sums:

Let $A$ and $B$ be objects of a category $\mathfrak C$ , and $(S, \alpha, \beta)$ a $\mathfrak C$ -direct sum of $A$ and $B$ . If $\Mor(B, A)$ is not empty then $\alpha$ is a monomorphism.

Plus, of course, the similar result obtained by exchanging $A$ and $B$ .

It so happens that in the category of sets, in the case of a direct product, both $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are always monomorphisms, even if $\Mor(B, A)$ , respectively $\Mor(A, B)$ , are empty.

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