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Abstract

A well-known result by Larson and Sweedler shows that integrals on a Hopf algebra can be obtained by applying the Structure Theorem for Hopf modules to the rational part of its linear dual. This fact can be rephrased by saying that taking the space of integrals comes from a right adjoint functor from a category of modules to the category of vector spaces. This observation inspired the categorical approach that we advocate in this work, which yields to a new notion of integrals for bialgebras in the linear setting. Despite the novelty of the construction, it returns the classical definition in the presence of an antipode. We test this new concept on bialgebras that satisfy at least one of the following properties: being coseparable as regular module coalgebras, having a one-sided antipode, being commutative, being cocommutative, or being finite-dimensional. One of the main results we obtain in this process is a dual Maschke-type theorem relating coseparability and total integrals. Remarkably, there are cases in which the space of integrals turns out to be isomorphic to that of the associated Hopf envelope. In particular, this space results to be one-dimensional for finite-dimensional bialgebras, providing an existence and uniqueness theorem for integrals in the finite-dimensional case. Furthermore, explicit computations are given for concrete examples including the polynomial bialgebra with one group-like variable, the quantum plane and the coordinate bialgebra of $n$-by-$n$ matrices.