We prove that the mapping stack Map(Y,X) of topological stacks X and Y is again a topological stack if Y admits a compact groupoid presentation. If Y admits a locally compact groupoid presentation, we show that Map(Y,X) is a paratopological stack. In particular, it has a classifying space (hence, a natural weak homotopy type). We prove an invariance theorem which shows that the weak homotopy type of the mapping stack Map(Y,X) does not change if we replace X by its classifying space, provided that Y is paracompact topological space. As an example, we describe the loop stack of the classifying stack BG of a topological group G in terms of twisted loop groups of G.
This is the first in a series of papers devoted to foundations of topological stacks. We begin developing a homotopy theory for topological stacks along the lines of classical homotopy theory of topological spaces. In this paper we go as far as introducing the homotopy groups and establishing their basic properties. We also develop a Galois theory of covering spaces for a (locally connected semilocally 1-connected) topological stack. Built into the Galois theory is a method for determining the stacky structure (i.e., inertia groups) of covering stacks. As a consequence, we get for free a chara…
A convenient bicategory of topological stacks is constructed which is both complete and Cartesian closed. This bicategory, called the bicategory of compactly generated stacks, is the analogue of classical topological stacks, but for a different Grothendieck topology. In fact, there is an equivalence of bicategories between compactly generated stacks and those classical topological stacks which admit locally compact Hausdorff atlases. Compactly generated stacks are also equivalent to a bicategory of topological groupoids and principal bundles, just as in the classical case. If a classical topol…
We define the notion of {\em classifying space} of a topological stack and show that every topological stack \X has a classifying space X which is a topological space well-defined up to weak homotopy equivalence. Under a certain paracompactness condition on \X, we show that X is actually well-defined up to homotopy equivalence. These results are formulated in terms of functors from the category of topological stacks to the (weak) homotopy category of topological spaces. We prove similar results for (small) diagrams of topological stacks.
We extend the functor Sing of singular chains to the category of topological stacks and establish its main properties. We prove that Sing respects weak equivalences and takes a morphism of topological stacks that is both a Serre and a Reedy fibration to a Kan fibration of simplicial sets. When restricted to the category of topological spaces Sing coincides with the usual singular functor.
The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of $(\infty, 1)$-stacks, in the sense of Hirschowitz-Simpson's `Descent Pour Les n-Champs', using the language of quasi-category theory and the author's local Joyal model structure. The main result is a characterization of $(\infty, 1)$-stacks in terms of mapping space presheaves. An important special case of this theorem gives a sufficient condition for the presheaf of quasi-categories associated to a presheaf of model categories to be a higher stack. In the final section, we apply this result to construct the higher stack of unbounded complexe…
In this note we define fibrations of topological stacks and establish their main properties. We prove various standard results about fibrations (fiber homotopy exact sequence, Leray-Serre and Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequences, etc.). We prove various criteria for a morphism of topological stacks to be a fibration, and use these to produce examples of fibrations. We prove that every morphism of topological stacks factors through a fibration and construct the homotopy fiber of a morphism of topological stacks. When restricted to topological spaces our notion of fibration coincides with the clas…
Using the machinery of etale homotopy theory a' la Artin-Mazur we determine the etale homotopy types of moduli stacks over $\bar{\Q}$ parametrizing families of algebraic curves of genus g greater than 1 endowed with an action of a finite group G of automorphisms, which comes with a fixed embedding in the mapping class group, such that in the associated complex analytic situation the action of G is precisely the differentiable action induced by this specified embedding of G in the mapping class group.
We extend a recent result of Pantev-Toen-Vaquie-Vezzosi, who constructed shifted symplectic structures on derived mapping stacks having a Calabi-Yau source and a shifted symplectic target. Their construction gives a clear conceptual framework for the so-called AKSZ formalism. We extend the PTVV construction to derived mapping stacks with boundary conditions, which is required in most applications to quantum field theories (see e.g. the work of Cattaneo-Felder on the Poisson sigma model, and the recent work of Cattaneo-Mnev-Reshetikhin). We provide many examples of Lagrangian and symplectic str…
The notion of the \emph{homotopy type} of a topological stack has been around in the literature for some time. The basic idea is that an atlas $X \to \mathfrak{X}$ of a stack determines a topological groupoid $\mathbb{X}$ with object space $X$. The homotopy type of $\mathfrak{X}$ should be the classifying space $B \mathbb{X}$. The choice of an atlas is not part of the data of a stack and hence it is not immediately clear why this construction of a homotopy type is well-defined, let alone functorial. The purpose of this note is to give an elementary construction of such a homotopy-type functor.
The main result of the paper is a formula for the fundamental group of the coarse moduli space of a topological stack. As an application, we find simple general formulas for the fundamental group of the coarse quotient of a group action on a topological space in terms of the fixed point data. The formulas seem, surprisingly, to be new. In particular, we recover, and vastly generalize, results of Armstrong, Bass, Higgins, Rhodes.
We prove that the Brauer group of TMF is isomorphic to the Brauer group of the derived moduli stack of elliptic curves. Then, we compute the local Brauer group, i.e., the subgroup of the Brauer group of elements trivialized by some étale cover of the moduli stack, up to a finite 2-torsion group.
Cohomology of a topological space with coefficients in stacks of abelian 2-groups is considered. A 2-categorical analog of the theorem of Grothendieck is proved, relating cohomology of the space with coefficients in a 2-stage spectrum and the Ext groups of appropriate stacks.
We prove that the class of numerable open covers of topological spaces is the smallest class that contains covers with pairwise disjoint elements and numerable covers with two elements, closed under composition and coarsening of covers. We apply this result to establish an analogue of the Brown--Gersten property for numerable open covers of topological spaces: a simplicial presheaf on the site of topological spaces satisfies the homotopy descent property for all numerable open covers if and only if it satisfies it for numerable covers with two elements and covers with pairwise disjoint element…
v2: An additional assumption was added in Theorem 4.8. In order to show that a connected abelian group is admissible on the site of locally compact spaces we must in addition assume that it is locally topologically divisible. This condition is used in the proof of Lemma 4.62.
This paper is a continuations of the project initiated in the book string topology for stacks. We construct string operations on the SO(2)-equivariant homology of the (free) loop space $L(X)$ of an oriented differentiable stack $X$ and show that $H^{SO(2)}_{*+dim(X) -2}(L(X))$ is a graded Lie algebra. In the particular case where $X$ is a 2-dimensional orbifold we give a Goldman-type description for the string bracket. To prove these results, we develop a machinery of (weak) group actions on topological stacks which should be of independent interest. We explicitly construct the quotient stack …
For a log scheme locally of finite type over $\mathbb{C}$, a natural candidate for its profinite homotopy type is the profinite completion of its Kato-Nakayama space. Alternatively, one may consider the profinite homotopy type of the underlying topological stack of its infinite root stack. Finally, for a log scheme not necessarily over $\mathbb{C}$, another natural candidate is the profinite étale homotopy type of its infinite root stack. We prove that, for a fine saturated log scheme locally of finite type over $\mathbb{C}$, these three notions agree. In particular, we construct a comparison …
In this article, we derive many properties of étale stacks in various contexts, and prove that étale stacks may be characterized categorically as those stacks that arise as prolongations of stacks on a site of spaces and local homeomorphisms. Moreover, we show that the bicategory of étale differentiable stacks and local diffeomorphisms is equivalent to the 2-topos of stacks on the site of smooth manifolds and local diffeomorphisms. An analogous statement holds for other flavors of manifolds (topological, $C^k,$ complex, super...), and topological spaces locally homeomorphic to a given space $X…
We construct a family of oriented extended topological field theories using the AKSZ construction in derived algebraic geometry, which can be viewed as an algebraic and topological version of the classical AKSZ field theories that occur in physics. These have as their targets higher categories of symplectic derived stacks, with higher morphisms given by iterated Lagrangian correspondences. We define these, as well as analogous higher categories of oriented derived stacks and iterated oriented cospans, and prove that all objects are fully dualizable. Then we set up a functorial version of the A…
We give new lower bounds for the (higher) topological complexity of a space, in terms of the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of a certain auxiliary space. We also give new lower bounds for the rational topological complexity of a space, and more generally for the rational sectional category of a map, in terms of the rational category of a certain auxiliary space. We use our results to deduce consequences for the global (rational) homotopy structure of simply connected, hyperbolic finite complexes.
