Topology
- A functor with a left and a right adjoint. Let G be the functor from topological spaces to sets that associates to every topological space its underlying set (forgetting the topology, that is). G has a left adjoint F, creating the discrete space on a set Y, and a right adjoint H creating the trivial topology on Y.
- Suspensions and loop spaces Given topological spaces X and Y, the space of homotopy classes of maps from the suspension SX of X to Y is naturally isomorphic to the space of homotopy classes of maps from X to the loop space ΩY of Y. This is an important fact in homotopy theory.
- Stone-Čech compactification. Let KHaus be the category of compact Hausdorff spaces and G : KHaus → Top be the inclusion functor to the category of topological spaces. Then G has a left adjoint F : Top → KHaus, the Stone–Čech compactification. The counit of this adjoint pair yields a continuous map from every topological space X into its Stone-Čech compactification. This map is an embedding (i.e. injective, continuous and open) if and only if X is a Tychonoff space.
- Direct and inverse images of sheaves Every continuous map f : X → Y between topological spaces induces a functor f ∗ from the category of sheaves (of sets, or abelian groups, or rings...) on X to the corresponding category of sheaves on Y, the direct image functor. It also induces a functor f −1 from the category of sheaves of abelian groups on Y to the category of sheaves of abelian groups on X, the inverse image functor. f −1 is left adjoint to f ∗. Here a more subtle point is that the left adjoint for coherent sheaves will differ from that for sheaves (of sets).
- Soberification. The article on Stone duality describes an adjunction between the category of topological spaces and the category of sober spaces that is known as soberification. Notably, the article also contains a detailed description of another adjunction that prepares the way for the famous duality of sober spaces and spatial locales, exploited in pointless topology.
Read more about this topic: Adjoint Functors, Examples, Further Examples