Skip to main content
8 of 12
[Edit removed during grace period]

How much categories $C$ such that $C$ and $C^{op}$ are monadic over $\mathrm{Set}$?

In this question, bimonadic category is a category $C$ such that $C$ and $C^{op}$ are monadic over $\mathrm{Set}$.

How many bimonadic categories are there? Can we classify them all?

Currently (updated):

  1. 1, $\mathrm{Set}$, $\mathrm{CompHaus}$, $\mathrm{SupLat}$ are bimonadic.
  2. $C \times D$ is bimonadic if $C$ and $D$ are bimonadic.

By the characterization theorem for monadic categories over $\mathrm{Set}$ (see Borceux, HCA II), this question is equivalent to searching categories $C$ with the following properties

  1. $C$ Barr-exact and co(Barr-exact).
  2. $C$ has a monadic generator and a comonadic cogenerator.

A monadic generator is an object $P$ such that

  1. $P$ is a separator (i.e. $\mathrm{Hom}(P, -)$ faithful)
  2. $P$ is projective (that is, $\mathrm{Hom}(P, -)$ preserves epimorphisms)
  3. $P$ has all copowered $\coprod_A P$
  4. For any $X \in \mathrm{Ob} C$, the natural morphism $\coprod_{f: P \to X} P \to X$ is a regular epimorphism.

Comonadic cogenerator is a formal dualization of this concept.

This characterization is not an answer to the question, because directly from it it is not clear how to check whether a given category is bimonadic.

P.S. A similar question about toposes states that the opposite category of a locally representable category is never locally representable (with the exception of complete posets?), but a monadic category is not necessarily locally representable (for example, the category of frames).