Grothendieck quasitoposes

A full reflective subcategory E of a presheaf category [C*,Set] is the category of sheaves for a topology j on C if and only if the reflection preserves finite limits. Such an E is called a Grothendieck topos. More generally, one can consider two topologies, j contained in k, and the category of sheaves for j which are separated for k. The categories E of this form, for some C, j, and k, are the Grothendieck quasitoposes of the title, previously studied by Borceux and Pedicchio, and include many examples of categories of spaces. They also include the category of concrete sheaves for a concrete site. We show that a full reflective subcategory E of [C*,Set] arises in this way for some j and k if and only if the reflection preserves monomorphisms as well as pullbacks over elements of E.Comment: v2: 24 pages, several revisions based on suggestions of referee, especially the new theorem 5.2; to appear in the Journal of Algebr

Effective descent morphisms of regular epimorphisms

Let $A$ be a regular category with pushouts of regular epimorphisms by regular epimorphism and $Reg(A)$ the category of regular epimorphisms in $A$. We prove that every regular epimorphism in $Reg(A)$ is an effective descent morphism if, and only if, $Reg(A)$ is a regular category. Then, moreover, every regular epimorphism in $A$ is an effective descent morphism. This is the case, for instance, when $A$ is either exact Goursat, or ideal determined, or is a category of topological Mal'tsev algebras, or is the category of $n$-fold regular epimorphisms in any of the three previous cases, for any $n\geq 1$