## A(nother) duality for the whole variety of MV-algebras

This is the abstract of a talk I gave in Florence at Beyond 2014.

Given a category $C$ one can form its ind-completion by taking all formal directed colimits of objects in $C$. The “correct” arrows to consider are then families of some special equivalence classes of arrows in $C$ (Johnstone 1986, V.1.2, pag. 225). The pro-completion is formed dually by taking all formal directed limits. For general reasons, the ind-completion of a category $C$ is dually equivalent to the pro-completion of the dual category $C^{\rm op}$.

$$\textrm{ind}\mbox{-}C\simeq (\textrm{pro}\mbox{-}(C^{\rm{op}}))^{\rm{op}}. \qquad\qquad (1)$$

Ind- and pro- completions are very useful objects (as they are closed under directed (co)limits) but cumbersome to use, because of the involved definitions of arrows between objects. We prove that if $C$ is an algebraic category, then the situation considerably simplifies.

If $V$ is any variety of algebras, one can think of any algebra $A$ in $V$ as colimit of finitely presented algebras as follows.

Consider a presentation of $A$ i.e., a cardinal $\mu$ and a congruence [/latex]\theta[/latex] on the free $\mu$-generated algebra $\mathcal{F}(\mu)$ such that $A\cong \mathcal{F}(\mu)/\theta$. Now, consider the set $F(\theta)$ of all finitely generated congruences contained in $\theta$, this gives a directed diagram in which the objects are the finitely presented algebras of the form $\mathcal{F}(n)/\theta_{i}$ where $\theta_{i}\in F(\theta)$ and $X_{1},...,X_{n}$ are the free generators occurring in $\theta_{i}$. It is straightforward to see that this diagram is directed, for if $\mathcal{F}(m)/\theta_{1}$ and $\mathcal{F}(n)/\theta_{2}$ are in the diagram, then both map into $\mathcal{F}(m+n)/\langle\theta_{1}\uplus\theta_{2}\rangle$, where $\langle\theta_{1}\uplus\theta_{2}\rangle$ is the congruence generated by the disjoint union of $\theta_{1}$ and $\theta_{2}$. Now, the colimit of such a diagram is exactly $A$.

Denoting by $V_{\textrm{fp}}$ the full subcategory of $V$ of finitely presented objects, the above reasoning entails

$$V\simeq\textrm{ind}\mbox{-}V_{\textrm{fp}}. \qquad\qquad (2)$$

We apply our result to the special case where $V$ is the class of MV-algebras. One can then combine the duality between finitely presented MV-algebras and the category $P_{\mathbb{Z}}$ of rational polyhedra with $\mathbb{Z}$-maps (see here), with (1)  and (2) to obtain,

$$MV\simeq\textrm{ind}\mbox{-}MV_{\textrm{fp}}\simeq \textrm{pro}\mbox{-}(P_{\mathbb{Z}})^{\rm{op}}. \qquad\qquad (3)$$

This gives a categorical duality for the whole class of MV-algebras whose geometric content may be more transparent than other dualities in literature. In increasing order of complexity one has that any MV-algebra:

1. is dual to a polyhedron (Finitely presented case);
2. is dual to an intersection of polyhedra (Semisimple case);
3. is dual to a countable nested sequence of polyhedra (Finitely generated case);
4. is dual to the directed limit of a family of polyhedra. (General case).

Here are the slides of this talk

## Two isomorphism criteria

These are the slides of a presentation given in Stellenbosch on two isomorphisms criteria for co-limits of sequences of finitely presented or finitely generated objects in a locally small categories.  The preprint containing full proofs and applications  of these two results is available here.

Two Isomorphism criteria

## Two isomorphism criteria for directed colimits

Using the general notions of finitely presentable and finitely generated object introduced by Gabriel and Ulmer in 1971, we prove that, in any (locally small) category, two sequences of finitely presentable objects and morphisms (or two sequences of finitely generated objects and monomorphisms) have isomorphic colimits (=direct limits) if, and only if, they are confluent. The latter means  that the two given sequences  can be connected by a back-and-forth chain of morphisms that is cofinal on each side, and commutes with the sequences at each finite stage. In several concrete situations,  analogous isomorphism criteria are typically obtained by ad hoc arguments.  The abstract results given here can  play the useful  rôle of discerning  the general from the specific in situations of actual interest. We illustrate by applying them to varieties  of algebras, on the one hand, and to dimension groups—the ordered $K_{0}$ of approximately finite-dimensional  C*-algebras—on the other. The first application encompasses such classical examples as Kurosh’s isomorphism criterion for countable torsion-free Abelian groups of finite rank. The second application yields the Bratteli-Elliott  Isomorphism Criterion for dimension groups. Finally, we  discuss  Bratteli’s original isomorphism criterion for approximately finite-dimensional C*-algebras, and show that his result does not follow from ours.

Two isomorphism criteria for directed colimits

## A discrete representation of free MV-algebras

We prove that the $n$-generated free MV-algebra is isomorphic to a quotient of the disjoint union of all the $n$-generated free MV$^{(n)}$-algebras. Such a quotient can be seen as the direct limit of a system consisting of all free MV${}^{(n)}$-algebras and special maps between them as morphisms.

A discrete representation of free MV-algebras