Amalgamable diagram shapes

TL;DR

This paper characterizes when diagrams shaped like a category can be amalgamated in categories with certain properties, providing equivalent conditions and a decidability result for finite cases.

Contribution

It establishes equivalent conditions for amalgamation of diagrams in categories with AP and JEP, including a new characterization involving idempotent endomorphisms and simple inductive constructions.

Findings

Equivalence of conditions for diagram amalgamation in categories with AP and JEP.

A new characterization involving the category of 'paths' and idempotent endomorphisms.

Decidability of these conditions for finite categories.

Abstract

A category has the amalgamation property (AP) if every pushout diagram has a cocone, and the joint embedding property (JEP) if every finite coproduct diagram has a cocone. We show that for a finitely generated category $\mathbf I$, the following are equivalent: (i) every $\mathbf I$-shaped diagram in a category with the AP and the JEP has a cocone; (ii) every $\mathbf I$-shaped diagram in the category of sets and injections has a cocone; (iii) a certain canonically defined category $\mathcal{L}(\mathbf{I})$ of "paths" in $\mathbf I$ has only idempotent endomorphisms. When $\mathbf I$ is a finite poset, these are further equivalent to: (iv) every upward-closed subset of $\mathbf I$ is simply-connected; (v) $\mathbf I$ can be built inductively via some simple rules. Our proof also shows that these conditions are decidable for finite $\mathbf I$.