We characterize those partially ordered sets I for which the canonical maps M i → colim M j into colimits of abstract sets are always injective, provided that the transition maps are injective. We also obtain some consequences for colimits of vector spaces.2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 18A30, 06A06.
Introduction.Crowns arise in various problems related to partially ordered sets (posets). Thus, for example, they appear in the study of retracts and fixed points (see [7]), in calculation of the cohomological dimension (see [5]), in applications to homotopy theory (see [11]) and in the investigation of incidence algebras and their quotients (see [1] and [6]). At the same time, quite often they play a "negative" role: the absence of crowns of some kind ensures the existence of certain good properties of posets or constructions related to them. For instance, an incidence algebra κ[S] of a finite poset S is completely separating if and only if S contains no crowns [6]. It is not surprising that such a situation arises in a problem of colimits which is discussed in this note: roughly speaking, the crowns are antagonists of directed sets for which colimits are usually considered and well understood (note that colimits over directed posets are called directed colimits, or direct limits, or inductive limits).More precisely, if one takes a directed colimit colim M i (also denoted by lim − → M i ), where i runs over a directed poset I, such that the transition maps ϕ ij : M i → M j are injective, then the canonical maps M i → colim M j are also injective, which is a crucial property for applications. Thus, one may wonder which are the posets I for which this always happens. We completely characterize such I in the case when the M i 's are abstract sets and obtain consequences for the colimits of vector spaces.This problem is related to a similar question about the ring-theoretic version of cross-sectional algebras of Fell bundles over inverse semigroups studied in [8], since such algebras are epimorphic images of colimits of vector spaces over non-necessarily directed posets. In the C * -algebraic context, it is proved that the fibres are canonically embedded into the cross-sectional algebra; however, the abstract ring theoretic version