Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
A number of important set functors have countable initial algebras, but terminal coalgebras are uncountable or even non-existent. We prove that the countable cardinality is an anomaly: every set functor with an initial algebra of a finite or uncountable regular cardinality has a terminal coalgebra of the same cardinality. We also present a number of categories that are algebraically complete and cocomplete, i.e., every endofunctor has an initial algebra and a terminal coalgebra. Finally, for finitary set functors we prove that the initial algebra mu F and terminal coalgebra nu F carry a canonical ultrametric with the joint Cauchy completion. And the algebra structure of mu F determines, by extending its inverse continuously, the coalgebra structure of nu F.
@InProceedings{adamek:LIPIcs.CALCO.2019.12,
author = {Ad\'{a}mek, Ji\v{r}{\'\i}},
title = {{On Terminal Coalgebras Derived from Initial Algebras}},
booktitle = {8th Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (CALCO 2019)},
pages = {12:1--12:21},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-120-7},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2019},
volume = {139},
editor = {Roggenbach, Markus and Sokolova, Ana},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CALCO.2019.12},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-114403},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.CALCO.2019.12},
annote = {Keywords: terminal coalgebras, initial algebras, algebraically complete category, finitary functor, fixed points of functors}
}