Logicians and philosophers of science have proposed various formal criteria for theoretical equivalence. In this paper, we examine two such proposals: definitional equivalence and categorical equivalence. In order to show precisely how these two well-known criteria are related to one another, we investigate an intermediate criterion called Morita equivalence.
We consider categories over a field $k$ in order to prove that smash extensions and Galois coverings with respect to a finite group coincide up to Morita equivalence of $k$-categories. For this purpose we describe processes providing Morita equivalences called contraction and expansion. We prove that composition of these processes provides any Morita equivalence, a result which is related with the karoubianisation (or idempotent completion) and additivisation of a $k$-category.
We review Morita equivalence for finite type $k$-algebras $A$ and also a weakening of Morita equivalence which we call stratified equivalence. The spectrum of $A$ is the set of equivalence classes of irreducible $A$-modules. For any finite type $k$-algebra $A$, the spectrum of $A$ is in bijection with the set of primitive ideals of $A$. The stratified equivalence relation preserves the spectrum of $A$ and also preserves the periodic cyclic homology of $A$. However, the stratified equivalence relation permits a tearing apart of strata in the primitive ideal space which is not allowed by Morita equivalence. A key example illustrating the distinction between Morita equivalence and stratified equivalence is provided by affine Hecke algebras associated to extended affine Weyl groups.
We prove that for every group $G$ and any two sets $I,J$, the Brandt semigroup algebras $ell(B(I,G))$ and $ell(B(J,G))$ are Morita equivalent with respect to the Morita theory of self-induced Banach algebras introduced by Gronbaek. As applications, we show that if $G$ is an amenable group, then for a wide class of Banach $ell(B(I,G))$-bimodules $E$, and every $n>0$, the bounded Hochschild cohomology groups $H^n(ell(B(I,G)),E^*)$ are trivial, and also, the notion of approximate amenability is not Morita invariant.
We define an equivalence relation between bimodules over maximal abelian selfadjoint algebras (masa bimodules) which we call spatial Morita equivalence. We prove that two reflexive masa bimodules are spatially Morita equivalent iff their (essential) bilattices are isomorphic. We also prove that if S^1, S^2 are bilattices which correspond to reflexive masa bimodules U_1, U_2 and f: S^1rightarrow S^2 is an onto bilattice homomorphism, then: (i) If U_1 is synthetic, then U_2 is synthetic. (ii) If U_2 contains a nonzero compact (or a finite or a rank 1) operator, then U_1 also contains a nonzero compact (or a finite or a rank 1) operator.
We initiate the program of extending to higher-rank graphs ($k$-graphs) the geometric classification of directed graph $C^*$-algebras, as completed in the 2016 paper of Eilers, Restorff, Ruiz, and Sorensen [ERRS16]. To be precise, we identify four moves, or modifications, one can perform on a $k$-graph $Lambda$, which leave invariant the Morita equivalence class of its $C^*$-algebra $C^*(Lambda)$. These moves -- insplitting, delay, sink deletion, and reduction -- are inspired by the moves for directed graphs described by Sorensen [So13] and Bates-Pask [BP04]. Because of this, our perspective on $k$-graphs focuses on the underlying directed graph. We consequently include two new results, Theorem 2.3 and Lemma 2.9, about the relationship between a $k$-graph and its underlying directed graph.