Invertibility in Category Representations

Abstract

Inverse categories are categories in which every morphism x has a unique pseudo-inverse y in the sense that xyx=x and yxy=y. Persistence modules from topological data analysis and similarly decomposable category representations factor through inverse categories. This paper gives a numerical condition, decidable when the indexing category is finite, characterizing when a representation of a small category factors through an inverse category.

16 pages. minor typos/fixes/rewording here. references added in intro. submission version