The weak bialgebra structures on $\mathbb{k}^{\oplus n}$

Abstract

Weak bialgebras are natural generalizations of bialgebras that play a fundamental role in quantum groups, tensor categories, and representation theory. In this paper, we systematically classify all (weak) bialgebra structures on the finite-dimensional semisimple algebra \(\Bbbk^{\oplus n}\), with a distinguished basis of primitive orthogonal idempotents. For the bialgebra case, we prove that such structures are in bijection with finite monoids, and that bialgebra isomorphisms correspond exactly to monoid isomorphisms. Extending the result to weak bialgebras, we show that every weak bialgebra structure uniquely determines a finite small category.