One goal of applied category theory is to better understand networks appearing throughout science and engineering. Here we introduce `structured cospans' as a way to study networks with inputs and outputs. Given a functor L: A -> X, a structured cospan is a diagram in X of the form L(a) -> x <- L(b). If A and X have finite colimits and L is a left adjoint, we obtain a symmetric monoidal category whose objects are those of A and whose morphisms are isomorphism classes of structured cospans. This is a hypergraph category. However, it arises from a more fundamental structure: a symmetric monoidal double category where the horizontal 1-cells are structured cospans. We show how structured cospans solve certain problems in the closely related formalism of `decorated cospans', and explain how they work in some examples: electrical circuits, Petri nets, and chemical reaction networks.
Keywords: bicategory, cospan, double category, monoidal category, network
@article{TAC_2020_35_a47,
author = {John C. Baez and Kenny Courser},
title = {Structured cospans},
journal = {Theory and applications of categories},
pages = {1771--1822},
year = {2020},
volume = {35},
language = {en},
url = {http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/TAC_2020_35_a47/}
}
John C. Baez; Kenny Courser. Structured cospans. Theory and applications of categories, Tome 35 (2020), pp. 1771-1822. http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/TAC_2020_35_a47/