# Dagger category

In mathematics, a dagger category (also called involutive category or category with involution [1][2]) is a category equipped with a certain structure called dagger or involution. The name dagger category was coined by Selinger.[3]

## Formal definition

A dagger category is a category equipped with an involutive functor that is the identity on objects, where is the opposite category.

In detail, this means that it associates to every morphism in its adjoint such that for all and ,

Note that in the previous definition, the term "adjoint" is used in a way analogous to (and inspired by) the linear-algebraic sense, not in the category-theoretic sense.

Some sources [4] define a category with involution to be a dagger category with the additional property that its set of morphisms is partially ordered and that the order of morphisms is compatible with the composition of morphisms, that is a<b implies for morphisms a, b, c whenever their sources and targets are compatible.

## Remarkable morphisms

In a dagger category , a morphism is called

• unitary if ;

The latter is only possible for an endomorphism .

The terms unitary and self-adjoint in the previous definition are taken from the category of Hilbert spaces where the morphisms satisfying those properties are then unitary and self-adjoint in the usual sense.