Co-tabulations, Bicolimits and Van-Kampen Squares in Collagories

Van Kampen diagrams are bicolimits in Span

In adhesive categories, pushouts along monomorphisms are Van Kampen (vk) squares, a special case of a more general notion called vk-diagram. Other examples of vk-diagrams include coproducts in extensive categories and strict initial objects. Extensive and adhesive categories characterise useful exactness properties of, respectively, coproducts and pushouts along monos and have found several app...

Van Kampen Colimits as Bicolimits in Span

The exactness properties of coproducts in extensive categories and pushouts along monos in adhesive categories have found various applications in theoretical computer science, e.g. in program semantics, data type theory and rewriting. We show that these properties can be understood as a single universal property in the associated bicategory of spans. To this end, we first provide a general noti...

Fibred Amalgamation, Descent Data, and Van Kampen Squares in Topoi

Characterizing Van Kampen Squares via Descent Data

Categories in which cocones satisfy certain exactness conditions w.r.t. pullbacks are subject to current research activities in theoretical computer science. Usually, exactness is expressed in terms of properties of the pullback functor associated with the cocone. Even in the case of non-exactness, researchers in model semantics and rewriting theory inquire an elementary characterization of the...

Being Van Kampen is a universal property

Colimits that satisfy the Van Kampen condition have interesting exactness properties. We show that the elementary presentation of the Van Kampen condition is actually a characterisation of a universal property in the associated bicategory of spans. The main theorem states that Van Kampen cocones are precisely those diagrams in a category that induce bicolimit diagrams in its associated bicatego...