Affine geometric spaces in tangent categories

R. F. Blute ; G. S. H. Cruttwell ; R. B. B. Lucyshyn-Wright

Theory and applications of categories, Tome 34 (2019), pp. 405-437

Résumé

We continue the program of structural differential geometry that begins with the notion of a tangent category, an axiomatization of structural aspects of the tangent functor on the category of smooth manifolds. In classical geometry, having an affine structure on a manifold is equivalent to having a flat torsion-free connection on its tangent bundle. This equivalence allows us to define a category of affine objects associated to a tangent category and we show that the resulting category is also a tangent category, as are several related categories. As a consequence of some of these ideas we also give two new characterizations of flat torsion-free connections.We also consider 2-categorical structure associated to the category of tangent categories and demonstrate that assignment of the tangent category of affine objects to a tangent category induces a 2-comonad.

Détail

Publié le : 2019-04-29

Classification : 18D99, 53A15, 53B05, 53C05, 18F15
Keywords: Tangent categories, affine manifolds, connections