Pointwise adjointness theorem

97 Views Asked by At

I'm confused in the way Barr and Wells proof the uniqueness of adjoints. Once they prove that using Yoneda lemma the two candidates $F,F'$ to be adjoint to some functor $U$ satisfy $F A \cong F' A$ for any $A$ they conclude by saying that the naturality of the isomorphism is a consequence of the following theorem:

Let $\mathcal{A},\mathcal{B}$ be categories and $U: \mathcal{B} \to \mathcal{A}$ be a functor. Suppose for each object $A$ of $\mathcal{A}$ there is an object $FA$ of $\mathcal{B}$ such that $Hom(FA, \cdot)$ is naturally equivalent to $Hom(A,U \cdot)$ as a functor from $\mathcal{B}$ to $Set$. Then the definition of $F$ on objects can be extended to arrows in such a way that $F$ becomes a functor and is left adjoint to $U$.

I'm assuming naturally equivalent means naturally isomorphic.

Question

Is the following proof correct?

Proof

Let $f:A \to A'$ be an arrow in $\mathcal{A}^{op}$ and denote the $n_A: Hom(FA, \cdot) \stackrel{\cong}{\to} Hom(A,U \cdot)$. Then we have the diagram:

enter image description here

If an arrow $Hom(FA',B) \to Hom(FA,B)$ makes the diagram commute it is necessarily: $$\phi(f,B) = n_A \circ Hom(f,UB) \circ n_{A'}^{-1}$$ But actually, $\phi(f,\cdot): Hom(FA',\cdot) \to Hom(FA,\cdot)$ is a natural transformation in $B$ since $n_A, n_{A'}$ and $Hom(f,U \cdot)$ are natural in $B$. By the Yoneda lemma, there exists a unique $B \in Hom(F A', F A)$ such that $Y(B) = Hom(B, \cdot) = \phi(f, \cdot)$. We define $F f = B: FA \to FA'$ as a morphism in $\mathcal{C}^{op}$.

We check that $F$ defined in this way is a functor.

$\phi(id_A, \cdot) = n_A \circ Hom(id_A,\cdot) \circ n_{A}^{-1} = n_A \circ n_A^{-1} = id$

$ \phi(f , \cdot) \circ \phi(g, \cdot) = n_A \circ Hom(f, \cdot) \circ n_{A'}^{-1} \circ n_{A'} \circ Hom(g,\cdot) \circ n_{A''}^{-1} = n_A \circ Hom(f,\cdot) \circ Hom(g,\cdot) \circ n_{A''}^{-1} = n_A \circ Hom(f \circ g, \cdot) \circ n_{A''}^{-1} = \phi(f \circ g, \cdot) $

It remains to check that $F$ is left adjoint to $U$. However, the above diagram states precisely the naturality in $A$ of the isomorphism while by hypothesis we have the naturality in $B$. These two lead to the conclusion that $F$ built in this way is left adjoint to $U$.

Question

My conclusion is that up to the choice of $n$ above, $F$ is uniquely determined. So this is indeed a proof of the uniqueness of adjoints up to isomorphism. Is that right?