Symmetric Self-Adjoint Hopf Categories and a Categorical Heisenberg Double

Motivated by the work of A. Zelevinsky on positive self-adjoint Hopf (PSH) algebras, we define what we call a symmetric self-adjoint Hopf (SSH) structure for a certain kind of semisimple abelian categories. It is known that every PSH algebra admits a natural action of the associated Heisenberg double. We construct canonical morphisms lifting the relations that define this action on the algebra level, and define an object that we call a categorical Heisenberg double that is a natural setting for considering these morphisms. As examples, we exhibit the SSH structure on the categories of polynomial functors and equivariant polynomial functors. In the case of the category of polynomial functors, we obtain categorification of the Fock space representation of the infinite-dimensional Heisenberg algebra.