Formalizing colimits in Cat

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Carneiro, Mario, Riehl, Emily
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Carneiro, Mario
Riehl, Emily
author_facet Carneiro, Mario
Riehl, Emily
contents Certain results involving "higher structures" are not currently accessible to computer formalization because the prerequisite $\infty$-category theory has not been formalized. To support future work on formalizing $\infty$-category theory in Lean's mathematics library, we formalize some fundamental constructions involving the 1-category of categories. Specifically, we construct the left adjoint to the nerve embedding of categories into simplicial sets, defining the homotopy category functor. We prove further that this adjunction is reflective, which allows us to conclude that Cat has colimits. To our knowledge this is the first formalized proof that the nerve functor is a fully faithful right adjoint and that the category of categories is cocomplete.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_20704
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Formalizing colimits in Cat
Carneiro, Mario
Riehl, Emily
Category Theory
03B38, 18A30, 18A35, 18N50, 68V20
Certain results involving "higher structures" are not currently accessible to computer formalization because the prerequisite $\infty$-category theory has not been formalized. To support future work on formalizing $\infty$-category theory in Lean's mathematics library, we formalize some fundamental constructions involving the 1-category of categories. Specifically, we construct the left adjoint to the nerve embedding of categories into simplicial sets, defining the homotopy category functor. We prove further that this adjunction is reflective, which allows us to conclude that Cat has colimits. To our knowledge this is the first formalized proof that the nerve functor is a fully faithful right adjoint and that the category of categories is cocomplete.
title Formalizing colimits in Cat
topic Category Theory
03B38, 18A30, 18A35, 18N50, 68V20
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20704