Definition. Pseudofunctor

A pseudofunctor ๐น:โ„ฌ๏ธ€โ†’๐’ž๏ธ€ is a lax functor whose unit and composition comparisons

๐น๐‘ฅ0:1๐น๐‘ฅโ‡’๐น(1๐‘ฅ)๐น๐‘“,๐‘”2:๐น๐‘“โ‹†๐น๐‘”โ‡’๐น(๐‘“โ‹†๐‘”)

are invertible 2-cells. So ๐น preserves identities and composition up to coherent isomorphism.

Being pseudo is a property of a lax functor: invertibility of a 2-cell is a proposition, since inverses are unique. The data of a pseudofunctor is exactly the data of a lax functor, and everything proved about lax functors applies to pseudofunctors unchanged. Pseudofunctors are closed under composition and identities, as lax functors are, because invertible 2-cells are closed under composition and under the action of a functor on hom-categories.

The main examples here are prestacks, pseudofunctors โ„ฌ๏ธ€opโ†’๐–ข๐– ๐–ณ. When โ„ฌ๏ธ€ is locally discrete on a category ๐’ž๏ธ€, these are the pseudofunctors ๐’ž๏ธ€opโ†’๐–ข๐– ๐–ณ of fibred category theory.

pseudofunctor definition entries/bicategory/pseudofunctor.hel