What does this categorical construction do

category-theory

I've come across the following categorical construction:

Let $\mathbf{C}$ be a category. Let $\mathbf{C}^{\prime}$ be the category whose objects are tuples $(X_i)_{i\in I}$, where $I$ is some set and $X_i,i\in I$ is an object in $\mathbf{C}$. The morphisms between two objects $(X_i)_{i\in I}$ and $(Y_j)_{j\in J}$ are given by a map $f\colon I\rightarrow J$ and a morphism $f_i\colon X_i\rightarrow Y_{f(i)}$ for each $i\in I$. The composition of a morphism $(X_i)_{i\in I}\stackrel{(f,(f_i)_{i\in I})}{\longrightarrow}(Y_j)_{j\in J}$ and a morphism $(Y_j)_{j\in J}\stackrel{(g,(g_j)_{j\in J})}{\longrightarrow}(Z_k)_{k\in K}$ is given by $(X_i)_{i\in I}\stackrel{(g\circ f,(g_{f(i)}\circ f_i)_{i\in I})}{\longrightarrow}(Z_k)_{k\in K}$. The identity morphism on $(X_i)_{i\in I}$ is $(\mathrm{id}_I,(\mathrm{id}_{X_i})_{i\in I})$ and the relevant axioms are immediate from the respective axioms in $\mathbf{Set}$ and $\mathbf{C}$.

My question is: What is this construction/What does it do? Does this admit a nice description in terms of known categorical constructions? It may be worth pointing out that an object $(X_i)_{i\in I}$ in $\mathbf{C}^{\prime}$ can be thought of as a functor from $\mathbf{I}$, the discrete category with $\mathrm{Ob}(\mathbf{I})=I$, to $\mathbf{C}$ and that the morphisms in $\mathbf{C}^{\prime}$ are just collections of morphisms in $\mathbf{C}$, which are "intertwined" by some functor $\mathbf{I}\rightarrow\mathbf{J}$, but I don't know how to make this precise.

Best Answer

One of perhaps many perspectives is the following:

This is essentially a 2-categorical analog of a slice/comma category.

In this case, it is the full 1-subcategory of the colax slice 2-category $\newcommand\Set{\mathbf{Set}}\newcommand\Cat{\mathbf{Cat}}\newcommand\C{\mathcal{C}}\Cat/\C$ on the objects which are sets regarded as small discrete categories.

I'll rewrite the definition of the colax slice 2-category here (particularly as it's not explicitly spelled out on the nlab page):

Let $\newcommand\B{\mathcal{B}}\B$ be a 2-category. Let $X$ be an object of $\B$. The colax slice 2-category $\B/X$ is defined to have

0-cells: $\B$-morphisms $a:A\to X$.

1-cells: If $a:A\to X$ and $b:B\to X$ are 0-cells, then a 1-cell $(f,\phi):a\to b$ is a pair of a $\B$-morphism $f:A\to B$ and a $\B$-2-cell $\phi : a\to bf$.

The composition of $(f,\phi):a\to b$ and $(g,\psi):b\to c$ is the pair $$(gf : A\to C, (\psi\operatorname{.} f)\phi : a\to bf \to cgf).$$

2-cells: If $(f,\phi),(g,\psi): a\to b$, a 2-cell $\alpha : (f,\phi)\to (g,\psi)$ is a 2-cell of $\B$, $\alpha : f\to g$, such that $\psi = (b\operatorname{.}\alpha)\phi$ as $\B$-2-cells from $a \to bg$

In our case

Specializing to our case, $\B=\Cat$, $X=\C$, and we restrict the domains of the $0$-cells to be sets, and then if we forget about 2-cells, we get exactly the construction from the question. Namely, objects are functors $i:I\to \C$, and morphisms $i\to j$ are pairs of a function $f:I\to J$ and a natural transformation $\phi: i\to jf$.

The composition also agrees with the composition in the question.

End note on philosophy and intuition of this perspective

Reading the question, what jumps out at me is that it looks a lot like a slice category or arrow category, since the objects are arrows. The next thought is that it's definitely a slice category, since the codomains are all the same. However the morphisms are different than in the 1-categorical slice category, since the triangles are only required to commute up to a homotopy. My next thought is that this looks exactly like what I'd expect a 2-categorical slice category to be, but we'd best be careful about what directions the homotopies go, since we aren't forcing them to be isomorphisms so I Google lax slice category, and up pops the nlab page linked above.

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