Lifting independence along functors

Abstract

Given a functor $F: \mathcal{C} \to \mathcal{D}$ and a model-theoretic independence relation on $\mathcal{D}$, we can lift that independence relation along $F$ to $\mathcal{C}$ by declaring a commuting square in $\mathcal{C}$ to be independent if its image under $F$ is independent. For each property that an independence relation can have we give assumptions on the functor that guarantee the property to be lifted.