Let M be a homogeneous space admitting a left translation by a connected Lie group G. The adjoint to the action gives rise to a map from G to the monoid of self-homotopy equivalences of M.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the injectivity of the homomorphism which is induced by the adjoint map on the rational homotopy. In particular, the visible degrees are determined explicitly for all the cases of simple Lie groups and their associated homogeneous spaces of rank one which are classified by Oniscik.
We introduce a nested sequence of monoids related to self-homotopy equivalences of fibrewise pointed spaces, such that the limit is the group of homotopy classes of fibrewise pointed self-equivalences. We explore this monoid for the fibred product in terms of individual spaces. Further we study two related invariants associated to these monoids: self closeness number and self length.
We show that the monoidal product on the stable homotopy category of spectra is essentially unique. This strengthens work of this author with Schwede on the uniqueness of models of the stable homotopy theory of spectra. As an application we show that with an added assumption about underlying model structures Margolis' axioms uniquely determine the stable homotopy category of spectra up to monoidal equivalence. Also, the equivalences constructed here give a unified construction of the known equivalences of the various symmetric monoidal categories of spectra (S-modules, \W-spaces, orthogonal sp…
We use derived localization of the bar and nerve constructions to provide simple proofs of a number of results in algebraic topology. This includes a recent generalization of Adams' cobar-construction to the non-simply connected case, and a new model for the homotopy theory of connected topological spaces using an infinity category of discrete monoids.
We will give a geometric description of the nth transversal homotopy monoid of k-dimensional complex projective space, where we stratify by lower dimensional complex projective spaces in the usual way. Transversal homotopy monoids are defined as classes of based transversal maps into Whitney stratified spaces up to equivalence through such maps. We will show the nth transversal homotopy monoid of k-dimensional complex projective space is isomorphic to isotopy classes of certain filtrations of the n-sphere. The required filtrations are by nested closed subspaces $X_0 \subset ... \subset X_k=S^n…
A monoidal model category is a model category with a compatible closed monoidal structure. Such things abound in nature; simplicial sets and chain complexes of abelian groups are examples. Given a monoidal model category, one can consider monoids and modules over a given monoid. We would like to be able to study the homotopy theory of these monoids and modules. This question was first addressed by Stefan Schwede and Brooke Shipley in "Algebras and modules in monoidal model categories", who showed that under certain conditions, there are model categories of monoids and of modules over a given m…
We consider a theory of centers and homotopy centers of monoids in monoidal categories which themselves are enriched in duoidal categories. Duoidal categories (introduced by Aguillar and Mahajan under the name 2-monoidal categories) are categories with two monoidal structures which are related by some, not necessary invertible, coherence morphisms. Centers of monoids in this sense include many examples which are not `classical.' In particular, the 2-category of categories is an example of a center in our sense. Examples of homotopy center (analogue of the classical Hochschild complex) include …
Informally, a homotopy monoid is a monoid-like structure in which properties such as associativity only hold `up to homotopy' in some consistent way. This short paper comprises a rigorous definition of homotopy monoid and a brief analysis of some examples. It is a much-abbreviated version of the paper `Homotopy Algebras for Operads' (math.QA/0002180), and does not assume any knowledge of operads.
Let $M$ be a topological monoid with homotopy group completion $ΩBM$. Under a strong homotopy commutativity hypothesis on $M$, we show that $π_k (ΩBM)$ is the quotient of the monoid of free homotopy classes $[S^k, M]$ by its submonoid of nullhomotopic maps. We give two applications. First, this result gives a concrete description of the Lawson homology of a complex projective variety in terms of point-wise addition of spherical families of effective algebraic cycles. Second, we apply this result to monoids built from the unitary, or general linear, representation spaces of discrete groups, lea…
We consider the category of presheaves of Gamma-spaces, or equivalently, of Gamma-objects in simplicial presheaves. Our main result is the construction of stable model structures on this category parametrised by local model structures on simplicial presheaves. If a local model structure on simplicial presheaves is monoidal, the corresponding stable model structure on presheaves of Gamma-spaces is monoidal and satisfies the monoid axiom. This allows us to lift the stable model structures to categories of algebras and modules over commutative algebras.
For a Kan complex with a vertex, we have the notion of its simplicial homotopy groups. In this paper, for a weak complicial set in the sense of Verity with a vertex, we construct monoids which are a generalization of simplicial homotopy groups.
A topological spherical space form is the quotient of a sphere by a free action of a finite group. In general, their homotopy types depend on specific actions of a group. We show that the monoid of homotopy classes of self-maps of a topological spherical space form is determined by the acting group and the dimension of the sphere, not depending on a specific action.
Given $X$ a finite nilpotent simplicial set, consider the classifying fibrations $$ X\to Baut_G^*(X)\to Baut_G(X),\qquad X\to Z\to Baut_π^*(X), $$ where $G$ and $π$ denote, respectively, subgroups of the free and pointed homotopy classes of free and pointed self homotopy equivalences of $X$ which act nilpotently on $H_*(X)$ and $π_*(X)$. We give algebraic models, in terms of complete differential graded Lie algebras (cdgl's), of the rational homotopy type of these fibrations. Explicitly, if $L$ is a cdgl model of $X$, there are connected sub cdgl's $Der^G L$ and $Der^π L$ of the Lie algebra $D…
We adapt the notion of an algebraic theory to work in the setting of quasicategories developed recently by Joyal and Lurie. We develop the general theory at some length. We study one extended example in detail: the theory of commutative monoids (which turns out to be essentially just a 2-category). This gives a straightforward, combinatorially explicit, and instructive notion of a commutative monoid. We prove that this definition is equivalent (in appropriate senses) both to the classical concept of an E-infinity monoid and to Lurie's concept of a commutative algebra object.
We show that the classifying space functor $B: Mon \to Top*$ from the category of topological monoids to the category of based spaces is left adjoint to the Moore loop space functor $Ω': Top*\to Mon$ after we have localized $Mon$ with respect to all homomorphisms whose underlying maps are homotopy equivalences and $Top*$ with respect to all based maps which are (not necessarily based) homotopy equivalences. It is well-known that this localization of $Top*$ exists, and we show that the localization of $Mon$ is the category of monoids and homotopy classes of homotopy homomorphisms. To make this …
We extend Thomason's homotopy colimit construction in the category of permutative categories to categories of algebras over an arbitrary $\Cat$ operad and analyze its properties. We then use this homotopy colimit to prove that the classifying space functor induces an equivalence between the category of $n$-fold monoidal categories and the category of $\mathcal{C}_n$-spaces after formally inverting certain classes of weak equivalences, where $\mathcal{C}_n$ is the little $n$-cubes operad. As a consequence we obtain an equivalence of the categories of $n$-fold monoidal categories and the categor…
Let p be a fibration of simply connected CW complexes with finite base B and fibre F. Let aut_1(p) denote the identity component of the space of all fibre-homotopy self-equivalences of p and Baut_1(p) the classifying space for this topological monoid. We give a differential graded Lie algebra model for Baut_1(p). We use this model to give classification results for the rational homotopy types represented by Baut_1(p) and also to obtain conditions under which the monoid aut_1(p) is a double loop-space after rationalization.
Let Aut(p) denote the topological monoid of self-fibre-homotopy equivalences of a fibration p:E\to B. We make a general study of this monoid, especially in rational homotopy theory. When E and B are simply connected CW complexes with E finite, we identify the rational Samelson Lie algebra of the identity component of Aut(p) as the homology of a certain DG Lie algebra of derivations arising from the Koszul-Sullivan model of p. We obtain related identifications for the rational homotopy groups of fibrewise mapping spaces and for the rationalization of a natural nilpotent subgroup of Aut(p).
The category of rational SO(2)-equivariant spectra admits an algebraic model. That is, there is an abelian category A(SO(2)) whose derived category is equivalent to the homotopy category of rational SO(2)-equivariant spectra. An important question is: does this algebraic model capture the smash product of spectra? The category A(SO(2)) is known as Greenlees' standard model, it is an abelian category that has no projective objects and is constructed from modules over a non-Noetherian ring. Hence the standard techniques for constructing a monoidal model structure cannot be applied. In this paper…
We construct a dg Lie model for the universal cover of the classifying space of the grouplike monoid of homotopy automorphisms of a space that fix a given subspace.
We present a definition of homotopy algebra for an operad, and explore its consequences. The paper should be accessible to topologists, category theorists, and anyone acquainted with operads. After a review of operads and monoidal categories, the definition of homotopy algebra is given. Specifically, suppose that M is a monoidal category in which it makes sense to talk about algebras for some operad P. Then our definition says what a homotopy P-algebra in M is, provided only that some of the morphisms in M have been marked out as `homotopy equivalences'. The bulk of the paper consists of examp…
An affine monoid is an additive monoid which is cancellative, pointed and finitely generated. An affine monoid $Λ$ has the partial order defined by $λ\le λ+ μ$. The Frobenius complex is the order complex of an open interval of $Λ$ with respect to this partial order. The reduced homology of the Frobenius complex is related to the torsion group of the monoid algebra $K[Λ]$. In this paper, we pay attention to homotopy types of Frobenius complexes, and we express the homotopy types of the Frobenius complexes of $Λ$ in terms of those of $Λ_1$ and $Λ_2$ when $Λ$ is an affine monoid obtained by gluin…
Let M be a monoidal category endowed with a distinguished class of weak equivalences and with appropriately compatible classifying bundles for monoids and comonoids. We define and study homotopy-invariant notions of normality for maps of monoids and of conormality for maps of comonoids in M. These notions generalize both principal bundles and crossed modules and are preserved by nice enough monoidal functors, such as the normaliized chain complex functor. We provide several explicit classes of examples of homotopy-normal and of homotopy-conormal maps, when M is the category of simplicial sets …
Constructions of spectra from symmetric monoidal categories are typically functorial with respect to strict structure-preserving maps, but often the maps of interest are merely lax monoidal. We describe conditions under which one can transport the weak equivalences from one category to another with the same objects and a broader class of maps. Under mild hypotheses this process produces an equivalence of homotopy theories. We describe examples including algebras over an operad, such as symmetric monoidal categories and $n$-fold monoidal categories; and diagram categories, such as $Γ$-categorie…
The symmetric spectra introduced by Hovey, Shipley and Smith are a convenient model for the stable homotopy category with a nice associative and commutative smash product on the point set level and a compatible Quillen closed model structure. About the only disadvantage of this model is that the stable equivalences cannot be defined by inverting those morphisms which induce isomorphisms on homotopy groups, because this would leave too many homotopy types. In this sense the naively defined homotopy groups are often `wrong`, and then their precise relationship to the `true` homotopy groups (i.e.…
We study categories of d-dimensional cobordisms from the perspective of Tillmann and Galatius-Madsen-Tillmann-Weiss. There is a category $C_θ$ of closed smooth (d-1)-manifolds and smooth d-dimensional cobordisms, equipped with generalised orientations specified by a fibration $θ: X \to BO(d)$. The main result of GMTW is a determination of the homotopy type of the classifying space $BC_θ$. The goal of the present paper is a systematic investigation of subcategories $D$ of $C_θ$ having classifying space homotopy equivalent to that of $C_θ$, the smaller such $D$ the better. We prove that in most …
We define a simplicial enrichment on the category of differential graded Hopf cooperads (the category of dg Hopf cooperads for short). We prove that our simplicial enrichment satisfies, in part, the axioms of a simplicial model category structure on the category of dg Hopf cooperads. We use this simplicial model structure to define a model of mapping spaces in the category of dg Hopf cooperads and to upgrade results of the literature about the homotopy automorphism spaces of dg Hopf cooperads by dealing with simplicial monoid structures. The rational homotopy theory of operads implies that the…
Modern categories of spectra such as that of Elmendorf et al equipped with strictly symmetric monoidal smash products allows the introduction of symmetric monoids providing a new way to study highly coherent commutative ring spectra. These have categories of modules which are generalisations of the classical categories of spectra that correspond to modules over the sphere spectrum; passing to their derived or homotopy categories leads to new contexts in which homotopy theory can be explored. In this paper we describe some of the tools available for studying these `brave new homotopy theories' …
We study the construction of tensor products of representations up to homotopy, which are the A-infinity version of ordinary representations. We provide formulas for the construction of tensor products of representations up to homotopy and of morphisms between them, and show that these formulas give the homotopy category a monoidal structure which is uniquely defined up to equivalence.
We compute the set of naive pointed homotopy classes of endomorphisms of the projective line P^1 over the spectrum of a field. Our computation compares well with Fabien Morel's one of the motivic pointed homotopy classes of endomorphisms of P^1: there is an a priori monoid structure on the set of naive homotopy classes such that canonical map from this monoid to group of motivic homotopy classes is a group completion.
If a map $f$ has a homotopy retraction, then Doeraene and El Haouari conjectured that the sectional category and the relative category of $f$ are the same. In this work we discuss this conjecture for some lower bounds of these invariants. In particular, when we consider the diagonal map, we obtain results supporting Iwase-Sakai's conjecture which asserts that the topological complexity is the monoidal topological complexity.
An algebraic theory $T$ is a category with objects $t_0,t_2...$ such that for each $n$ the object $t_n$ is an $n$-fold categorical product of $t_1$. A strict $T$-algebra is a product preserving functor $A: T\to Spaces$. Lawvere showed that for a suitable choice of T giving such an algebra amounts to providing the space $A(t_1)$ with a familiar structure of a monoid group, ring, Lie algebra... Given a functor $X: T\to Spaces$ which preserves products up to a weak equivalence we show that $X$ is more or less canonically weakly equivalent to a strict $T$-algebra $LX$. Thus any `homotopy' algebrai…
We use a "twisted group algebra" method to constructively adjoin formal radicals $\sqrt[n]α$, for $α$ a unit in a commutative ring spectrum or an invertible object in a symmetric monoidal $\infty$-category. We show that this construction is classified by maps from Eilenberg-Mac Lane objects to the unit spectrum, the Picard spectrum, and the Brauer spectrum.
For commutative algebras there are three important homology theories, Harrison homology, Andre-Quillen homology and Gamma-homology. In general these differ, unless one works with respect to a ground field of characteristic zero. We show that the analogues of these homology theories agree in the category of pointed commutative monoids in symmetric sequences and that Hochschild homology always possesses a Hodge decomposition in this setting. In addition we prove that the category of pointed differential graded commutative monoids in symmetric sequences has a model structure and that it is Quille…
We prove that if a pair of semi-cosimplicial spaces (X,Y) arise from a coloured operad then the semi-totalization sTot(Y) has the homotopy type of a relative double loop space and the pair (sTot(X),sTot(Y)) is weakly equivalent to an explicit algebra over the two dimensional Swiss-cheese operad.
We show that the homotopy category of commutative algebra spectra over the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum of the integers is equivalent to the homotopy category of E-infinity-monoids in unbounded chain complexes. We do this by establishing a chain of Quillen equivalences between the corresponding model categories. We also provide a Quillen equivalence to commutative monoids in the category of functors from the category of finite sets and injections to unbounded chain complexes.
This work contributes to clarifying several relationships between certain higher categorical structures and the homotopy type of their classifying spaces. Bicategories (in particular monoidal categories) have well understood simple geometric realizations, and we here deal with homotopy types represented by lax diagrams of bicategories, that is, lax functors to the tricategory of bicategories. In this paper, it is proven that, when a certain bicategorical Grothendieck construction is performed on a lax diagram of bicategories, then the classifying space of the resulting bicategory can be though…
We prove that a weak equivalence between two cofibrant (colored) props in chain complexes induces a Dwyer-Kan equivalence between the simplicial localizations of the associated categories of algebras. This homotopy invariance under base change implies that the homotopy category of homotopy algebras over a prop P does not depend on the choice of a cofibrant resolution of P, and gives thus a coherence to the notion of algebra up to homotopy in this setting. The result is established more generally for algebras in combinatorial monoidal dg categories.
We study the existence and left properness of transferred model structures for "monoid-like" objects in monoidal model categories. These include genuine monoids, but also all kinds of operads as for instance symmetric, cyclic, modular, higher operads, properads and PROP's. All these structures can be realised as algebras over polynomial monads. We give a general condition for a polynomial monad which ensures the existence and (relative) left properness of a transferred model structure for its algebras. This condition is of a combinatorial nature and singles out a special class of polynomial mo…
We denote the $n$-th projective space of a topological monoid $G$ by $B_nG$ and the classifying space by $BG$. Let $G$ be a well-pointed topological monoid of the homotopy type of a CW complex and $G'$ a well-pointed grouplike topological monoid. We prove the weak equivalence between the pointed mapping space $\mathrm{Map}_0(B_nG,BG)$ and the space of all $A_n$-maps from $G$ to $G'$. This fact has several applications. As the first application, we show that the connecting map $G\rightarrow\mathrm{Map}_0(B_nG,BG)$ of the evaluation fiber sequence $\mathrm{Map}_0(B_nG,BG)\rightarrow\mathrm{Map}(…
We provide general conditions under which the algebras for a coloured operad in a monoidal model category carry a Quillen model structure, and prove a Comparison Theorem to the effect that a weak equivalence between suitable such operads induces a Quillen equivalence between their categories of algebras. We construct an explicit Boardman-Vogt style cofibrant resolution for coloured operads, thereby giving a uniform approach to algebraic structures up to homotopy over coloured operads. The Comparison Theorem implies that such structures can be rectified.
This paper identifies the homotopy theories of topological stacks and orbispaces with unstable global homotopy theory. At the same time, we provide a new perspective by interpreting it as the homotopy theory of `spaces with an action of the universal compact Lie group'. The upshot is a novel way to construct and study genuine cohomology theories on stacks, orbifolds, and orbispaces, defined from stable global homotopy types represented by orthogonal spectra. The universal compact Lie group (which is neither compact nor a Lie group) is a well known object, namely the topological monoid $\mathca…
The question was asked by Niranjan Ramachandran: how to describe the fundamental groupoid of LX, the free loop space of a space X? We give an answer by assuming X to be the classifying space of a crossed module over a group, and then describe completely a crossed module over a groupoid determining the homotopy 2-type of LX. The method requires detailed information on the monoidal closed structure on the category of crossed complexes.
We extend the standard localization theory for function and section spaces due to Hilton-Mislin-Roitberg and Moller outside the CW category to the case of compact metric domain in the presence of a grouplike structure. We study applications in two cases directly generalizing the gauge group of a principal bundle. We prove an identity for the monoid of fibre-homotopy self-equivalences of a Hurewicz fibration -- due to Gottlieb and Booth-Heath-Morgan-Piccinini in the CW category -- in the compact case. This leads to an extended localization result for this monoid. We also obtain an extended loca…
We explain how the notion of homotopy colimits gives rise to that of mapping spaces, even in categories which are not simplicial. We apply the technique of model approximations and use elementary properties of the category of spaces to be able to construct resolutions. We prove that the homotopy category of any monoidal model category is always a central algebra over the homotopy category of Spaces.
An algebraic version of a theorem due to Quillen is proved. More precisely, for a ground field k we consider the motivic stable homotopy category SH(k) of P^1-spectra equipped with the symmetric monoidal structure described in arXiv:0709.3905v1 [math.AG]. The algebraic cobordism P^1-spectrum MGL is considered as a commutative monoid equipped with a canonical orientation. For a commutative monoid E in the category SH(k) we identify the set of monoid homomorphisms from MGL to E in the motivic stable homotopy category with the set of all orientations of E. This result was stated originally in a s…
We extend Schwede's work on the unstable global homotopy theory of orthogonal spaces and $\mathcal{L}$-spaces to the category of $*$-modules (i.e., unstable $S$-modules). We prove a theorem which transports model structures and their properties from $\mathcal{L}$-spaces to $*$-modules and show that the resulting global model structure for $*$-modules is monoidally Quillen equivalent to that of orthogonal spaces. As a consequence, there are induced Quillen equivalences between the associated model categories of monoids, which identify equivalent models for the global homotopy theory of $A_\inft…
We show that mapping spaces in the p-local motivic stable category over an Fp-scheme are strictly commutative monoids (whence HZ-modules) in a canonical way.
A recent theorem of Dobrinskaya states that the K(π,1)-conjecture holds for an Artin group G if and only if the canonical map from BM to BG is a homotopy equivalence, where M denotes the Artin monoid associated to G. The aim of this paper is to give an alternative proof by means of discrete Morse theory and abstract homotopy theory. Moreover, we exhibit a new model for the classifying space of an Artin monoid, in the spirit of Charney, Meier and Whittlesey, and a small chain complex for computing its monoid homology, similar to the one of Squier.
We introduce the homotopy surface category of a space which generalizes the 1+1-dimensional cobordism category of circles and surfaces to the situation where one introduces a background space. We explain how for a simply connected background space, monoidal functors from this category to vector spaces can be interpreted in terms of Frobenius algebras with additional structure.
Described the algebraic structure on the space of homotopy classes of cycles with marked topological flags of disks. This space is a non-commutative monoid, with an Abelian quotient corresponding to the group of singular homologies $H_k(M)$. For the marked flag contracted to a point the multiplication becomes commutative and the subgroup of spherical cycles corresponds to the usual homotopy group $π_k(M)$.
The question of whether a given H-space X is, up to homotopy, a loop space has been studied from a variety of viewpoints. Here we address this question from the aspect of homotopy operations, in the classical sense of operations on homotopy groups. First, we show how an H-space structure on X can be used to define the action of the primary homotopy operations on the shifted homotopy groups π_{*-1} X (which are isomorphic to π_* Y, if X=Ω\Y. This action will behave properly with respect to composition of operations if X is homotopy-associative, and will lift to a topological action of the monoi…
