Internal partial combinatory algebras and their slices

Abstract

A partial combinatory algebra (PCA) is a set equipped with a partial binary operation that models a notion of computability. This paper studies a generalization of PCAs, introduced by W. Stekelenburg, where a PCA is not a set but an object in a given regular category. The corresponding class of categories of assemblies is closed both under taking small products and under slicing, which is to be contrasted with the situation for ordinary PCAs. We describe these two constructions explicitly at the level of PCAs, allowing us to compute a number of examples of products and slices of PCAs. Moreover, we show how PCAs can be transported along regular functors, enabling us to compare PCAs constructed over different base categories. Via a Grothendieck construction, this leads to a (2-)category whose objects are PCAs and whose arrows are generalized applicative morphisms. This category has small products, which correspond to the small products of categories of assemblies, and it has finite coproducts in a weak sense. Finally, we give a criterion when a functor between categories of assemblies that is induced by an applicative morphism has a right adjoint, by generalizing the notion of computational density.