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I'm interested in a sort of converse to If a functor between categories of modules preserves injectivity and surjectivity, must it be exact?

I have a few related questions.

  1. If $F:C \to D$ is an exact functor between concrete abelian categories, then does $F$ map injective morphisms to injective morphisms? Likewise, does $F$ map surjective morphisms to surjective morphisms? This seems like a very natural question to me, but I don't see it asked/answered anywhere.
  2. If the above is true, why doesn't anyone mention it?
  3. If the above is false, what additional requirements might be imposed on $C,D$ or $F$ to get this property?

EDIT: Added the requirement that the category be concrete.

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There is no such thing as "injective" or "surjective" morphisms; these conditions only make sense in the presence of a forgetful functor to $\text{Set}$.

What is true is that exact functors preserve monomorphisms and epimorphisms, and this is because

  1. in an abelian category, monomorphisms are precisely the morphisms with zero kernel and epimorphisms are precisely the morphisms with zero cokernel,
  2. exact functors preserve kernels and cokernels, and
  3. exact functors preserve zero.

Edit: The answer to the revised question is no. The next few paragraphs explain an abstract argument for finding large classes of counterexamples, and towards the end give a specific counterexample, which is easier to understand.

For starters, let $F$ be the identity functor between two copies of the same abelian category $A$ which are concretized with respect to two different forgetful functors $U_1, U_2 : A \to \text{Set}$. If $f$ is a morphism in $A$, call it $U_1$-surjective if $U_1(f)$ is surjective and $U_2$-surjective if $U_2(f)$ is surjective. We are looking for examples of $A, U_1, U_2$ such that $U_1$-surjectivity does not imply $U_2$-surjectivity, which will turn out to be a bit easier to find than examples involving injectivity.

However, if $F : C \to D$ is a counterexample to the question about surjectivity, then $F^{op} : C^{op} \to D^{op}$ is a counterexample to the question about injectivity, provided that the forgetful functors $U_C, U_D : C, D \to \text{Set}$ are replaced by the composites of their opposites

$$U_C^{op}, U_D^{op} : C^{op}, D^{op} \to \text{Set}^{op}$$

with the functor $\text{Hom}(-, 2) : \text{Set}^{op} \to \text{Set}$.

We can construct a general class of counterexamples as follows. Suppose $U_1, U_2$ take the form $\text{Hom}(u_1, -)$ and $\text{Hom}(u_2, -)$ for two generators $u_1, u_2$ of $A$, and that $u_1$ is projective but $u_2$ is not. This means that $U_1$ is exact and faithful, and hence that a morphism is $U_1$-surjective iff it's an epimorphism (exercise).

It also means that $u_2$ admits a nontrivial extension

$$0 \to a \to b \xrightarrow{f} u_2 \to 0$$

for some objects $a, b \in A$. The morphism $f$ is an epimorphism, hence $U_1$-surjective, but it cannot be $U_2$-surjective: applying $\text{Hom}(u_2, -)$ to this short exact sequence produces the Ext long exact sequence

$$0 \to \text{Hom}(u_2, a) \to \text{Hom}(u_2, b) \xrightarrow{U_2(f)} \text{Hom}(u_2, u_2) \xrightarrow{\partial} \text{Ext}^1(u_2, a) \to \cdots$$

where $U_2(f)$ cannot be surjective because the connecting homomorphism $\partial$ is not zero: it necessarily maps $\text{id} \in \text{Hom}(u_2, u_2)$ to the element of $\text{Ext}^1(u_2, a)$ classifying the above extension. From here it suffices to find an abelian category $A$ and two generators $u_1, u_2$ of it, one of which is projective and one of which is not.

This state of affairs is easy to arrange; arguably the simplest example is $A = \text{Ab}, u_1 = \mathbb{Z}, u_2 = \mathbb{Z} \oplus \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$, so that

$$U_1(-) = \text{Hom}(\mathbb{Z}, -) : \text{Ab} \to \text{Set}$$

is the usual forgetful functor, but

$$U_2(-) = \text{Hom}(\mathbb{Z}, -) \oplus \text{Hom}(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}, -) : \text{Ab} \to \text{Set}$$

sends an abelian group to its underlying set times its subgroup of elements of order dividing $2$. So a morphism $f : x \to y$ of abelian groups is $U_1$-surjective iff it's surjective, but $U_2$-surjective iff it is both surjective and surjective on elements of order dividing $2$. This means that e.g. the quotient map $\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z} \to \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ is surjective but not $U_2$-surjective.

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    I was mistakenly assuming that all abelian categories are concrete. That's the question I'm interested in. It seems your answer says that the answer to my amended question would be yes, if I'm right in thinking that epimorphisms are injective maps in concrete categories.2017-02-20
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    @Joshua: being concrete is a structure, not a property. A category may admit several different forgetful functors to $\text{Set}$, which may equip it with different notions of injective and surjective. It is also not necessarily the case that injective and surjective always agree with monomorphism and epimorphism, for this reason among others; this is why we have a separate notion of monomorphism and epimorphism.2017-02-20
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    Ah, I see. Nevertheless, am I right in thinking that in the special cases of the concrete categories of groups, rings, fields, and $R$-modules, the notions of epimorphism and injective are equivalent? (And likewise for monomorphism and surjective.)2017-02-20
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    @Joshua: the other way around; epimorphisms are supposed to correspond to surjective maps, and monomorphisms are supposed to correspond to injective maps. And no. It's usually the case that monomorphisms coincide with injective maps, but for rings there are epimorphisms that are not surjective, every morphism in the category of fields is an epimorphism, and for groups it happens to be the case that epimorphisms and surjections coincide but the proof is a bit tricky. The easiest case is $R$-modules, where epimorphisms and surjections do in fact coincide (for the usual forgetful functor).2017-02-20