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projective object (Definition)

Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a category. An object $P$ in $\mathcal{C}$ is said to be projective if, given a diagram on the left, with $g$ a strong epimorphism, there is a morphism $h:P\to A$ making the diagram on the right commutative:

$\displaystyle \xymatrix@+=4pc{ &{P}\ar[d]^{f}\ {A}\ar[r]_{g}&{B} } \hspace{4cm} \xymatrix@+=4pc{ &{P}\ar[d]^{f} \ar@{.>}[dl]_h \ {A}\ar[r]_{g}&{B} } $
An injective object can be defined dually: an object $Q$ in $\mathcal{C}$ is injective if, given a diagram on the left, with $g$ a strong monomorphism, there is a morphism $h:B\to Q$ making the digram on the right commutative:

$\displaystyle \xymatrix@+=4pc{ {A}\ar[r]^{g} \ar[d] &{B} \ Q & } \hspace{4cm} \xymatrix@+=4pc{ {A}\ar[r]^{g} \ar[d] &{B} \ar@{.>}[dl]^h \ Q & } $

When $\mathcal{C}$ is an abelian category, we have the following: an object $P$ in $\mathcal{C}$ is projective iff $$\operatorname{Hom}(P,-)\colon\mathcal{C}\to\mathbf{Ab}$$ is an exact functor, where $\mathbf{Ab}$ is the category of abelian groups. Dually, an object $Q$ is injective iff the $\operatorname{Hom}(-,Q)$ functor from $\mathcal{C}$ to $\mathbf{Ab}$ is exact.

Example. Let $R$ be a ring with 1. Consider the category of left $R$ -modules $\mathcal{M}_R$ . $\mathcal{M}_R$ is an abelian category. The projective objects in $\mathcal{M}_R$ are precisely the projective left $R$ -modules. So $R$ is itself a projective object in $\mathcal{M}_R$ .

Dually, the injective objects in $\mathcal{M}_R$ are exactly the injective left $R$ -modules.

Bibliography

1
F. Borceux Basic Category Theory, Handbook of Categorical Algebra I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1994)




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See Also: enough projectives, enough injectives

Also defines:  injective object
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Cross-references: ring, functor, abelian groups, exact functor, iff, abelian category, strong monomorphism, injective, commutative, right, morphism, strong epimorphism, diagram, object, category
There are 8 references to this entry.

This is version 7 of projective object, born on 2004-11-01, modified 2009-01-23.
Object id is 6437, canonical name is ProjectiveObject.
Accessed 2955 times total.

Classification:
AMS MSC18E10 (Category theory; homological algebra :: Abelian categories :: Exact categories, abelian categories)

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