nLab structure type

Contents

Contents

Idea

A ‘structure type’ is a type of extra structure that can placed on finite sets, e.g. a coloring, or ordering.

Definition

We define a structure type to be a faithful functor

p:Xcore(FinSet)p: X \to core(FinSet)

from some groupoid XX to core(FinSet), which is the groupoid of finite sets and bijections. Equivalently, we can think of it as a presheaf of sets on the groupoid of finite sets and bijections, or in other words a functor

F:core(FinSet) opSetF: core(FinSet)^{op} \to Set

These two points of view are related by the Grothendieck construction:

F(n)=p 1(n)F(n) = p^{-1}(n)

But since a groupoid is equivalent to its opposite, we can also think of a structure type as a functor

core(FinSet)Setcore(FinSet) \to Set

In this guise, a structure type is more commonly called a (combinatorial) species of structure, or species for short.

A structure type is a special case of a stuff type, so see stuff type for more information.

References

Last revised on May 29, 2012 at 22:04:00. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.