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Affine functors and duality

A functor of sets $\mathbb X$ over the category of $K$-commutative algebras is said to be an affine functor if its functor of functions, $\mathbb A_{\mathbb X}$, is reflexive and $\mathbb X=\Spec \mathbb A_{\mathbb X}$. We prove that affine functors are equal to a direct limit of affine schemes and that affine schemes, formal schemes, the completion of affine schemes along a closed subscheme, etc., are affine functors. Endowing an affine functor $\mathbb X$ with a functor of monoids structure is equivalent to endowing $\mathbb A_{\mathbb X}$ with a functor of bialgebras structure. If $\mathbb G$ is an affine functor of monoids, then $\mathbb A_{\mathbb G}^*$ is the enveloping functor of algebras of $\mathbb G$ and the category of $\mathbb G$-modules is equivalent to the category of $\mathbb A_{\mathbb G}^*$-modules. Applications of these results include Cartier duality, neutral Tannakian duality for affine group schemes, the equivalence between formal groups and Lie algebras in characteristic zero, etc.