Semiseparable functors

In this paper we introduce and investigate the notion of semiseparable functor. One of its first features is that it allows a novel description of separable and naturally full functors in terms of faithful and full functors, respectively. To any semiseparable functor we attach an invariant, given by an idempotent natural transformation, which controls when the functor is separable and yields a characterization of separable functors in terms of (dual) Maschke and conservative functors. We prove that any semiseparable functor admits a canonical factorization as a naturally full functor followed by a separable functor. Here the main tool is the construction of the coidentifier category attached to the associated idempotent natural transformation. Then we move our attention to the semiseparability of functors that have an adjoint. First we obtain a Rafael-type Theorem. Next we characterize the semiseparability of adjoint functors in terms of the (co)separability of the associated (co)monads and the natural fullness of the corresponding (co)comparison functor. We also focus on functors that are part of an adjoint triple. In particular, we describe bireflections as semiseparable (co)reflections, or equivalently, as either Frobenius or naturally full (co)reflections. As an application of our results, we study the semiseparability of functors traditionally attached to ring homomorphisms, coalgebra maps, corings and bimodules, introducing the notions of semicosplit coring and semiseparability relative to a bimodule which extend those of cosplit coring and Sugano's separability relative to a bimodule, respectively.