Isbell duality

Yoneda embedding

The (covariant) Yoneda embedding is a covariant functor from a small category ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}}$ into the category of presheaves ${\displaystyle \left[{\mathcal {A}}^{op},{\mathcal {V}}\right]}$ on ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}}$, taking ${\displaystyle X\in {\mathcal {A}}}$ to the contravariant representable functor:

${\displaystyle y\;(h^{\bullet }):{\mathcal {A}}\rightarrow \left[{\mathcal {A}}^{op},{\mathcal {V}}\right]}$

${\displaystyle X\mapsto \mathrm {hom} (-,X).}$

and the co-Yoneda embedding (a.k.a. dual Yoneda embedding) is a contravariant functor from a small category ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}}$ into the opposite of the category of co-presheaves ${\displaystyle \left[{\mathcal {A}},{\mathcal {V}}\right]^{op}}$ on ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}}$, taking ${\displaystyle X\in {\mathcal {A}}}$ to the covariant representable functor:

${\displaystyle z\;({h_{\bullet }}^{op}):{\mathcal {A}}\rightarrow \left[{\mathcal {A}},{\mathcal {V}}\right]^{op}}$

${\displaystyle X\mapsto \mathrm {hom} (X,-).}$

Isbell duality

Every functor ${\displaystyle F\colon {\mathcal {A}}^{\mathrm {op} }\to {\mathcal {V}}}$ has an Isbell conjugate of a functor ${\displaystyle F^{\ast }\colon {\mathcal {A}}\to {\mathcal {V}}}$, given by

${\displaystyle F^{\ast }(X)=\mathrm {hom} (F,y(X)).}$

In contrast, every functor ${\displaystyle G\colon {\mathcal {A}}\to {\mathcal {V}}}$ has an Isbell conjugate of a functor ${\displaystyle G^{\ast }\colon {\mathcal {A}}^{\mathrm {op} }\to {\mathcal {V}}}$ given by

${\displaystyle G^{\ast }(X)=\mathrm {hom} (z(X),G).}$

These two functors are not typically inverses, or even natural isomorphisms. Isbell duality asserts that the relationship between these two functors is an adjunction.

Isbell duality is the relationship between Yoneda embedding and co-Yoneda embedding；

Let ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {V}}}$ be a symmetric monoidal closed category, and let ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}}$ be a small category enriched in ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {V}}}$.

The Isbell duality is an adjunction between the functor categories; ${\displaystyle \left({\mathcal {O}}\dashv \mathrm {Spec} \right)\colon \left[{\mathcal {A}}^{op},{\mathcal {V}}\right]{\underset {\mathrm {Spec} }{\overset {\mathcal {O}}{\rightleftarrows }}}\left[{\mathcal {A}},{\mathcal {V}}\right]^{op}}$.

Applying the nerve construction, the functors ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}\dashv \mathrm {Spec} }$ of Isbell duality are such that ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}\cong \mathrm {Lan_{y}z} }$ and ${\displaystyle \mathrm {Spec} \cong \mathrm {Lan_{z}y} }$.