For a diagram of simplicial combinatorial model categories, we show that the associated lax limit, endowed with the projective model structure, is a presentation of the lax limit of the underlying $\infty$-categories. Our approach can also allow for the indexing category to be simplicial, as long as the diagram factors through its homotopy category. Analogous results for the associated homotopy limit (and other intermediate limits) directly follow.
We define and discuss lax and weighted colimits of diagrams in $\infty$-categories and show that the coCartesian fibration associated to a functor is given by its lax colimit. A key ingredient, of independent interest, is a simple characterization of the free Cartesian fibration associated to a a functor of $\infty$-categories. As an application of these results, we prove that lax representable functors are preserved under exponentiation, and also that the total space of a presentable Cartesian fibration between $\infty$-categories is presentable, generalizing a theorem of Makkai and Paré to t…
We use the basic expected properties of the Gray tensor product of $(\infty,2)$-categories to study (co)lax natural transformations. Using results of Riehl-Verity and Zaganidis we identify lax transformations between adjunctions and monads with commutative squares of (monadic) right adjoints. We also identify the colax transformations whose components are equivalences (generalizing the "icons" of Lack) with the 2-morphisms that arise from viewing $(\infty,2)$-categories as simplicial $\infty$-categories. Using this characterization we identify the $\infty$-category of monads on a fixed object …
Motivated by the challenge of defining twisted quantum field theories in the context of higher categories, we develop a general framework for lax and oplax transformations and their higher analogs between strong $(\infty, n)$-functors. We construct a double $(\infty,n)$-category built out of the target $(\infty, n)$-category governing the desired diagrammatics. We define (op)lax transformations as functors into parts thereof, and an (op)lax twisted field theory to be a symmetric monoidal (op)lax natural transformation between field theories. We verify that lax trivially-twisted relative field …
We introduce a new type of weakly enriched categories over a given symmetric monoidal model category M; these are called Co-Segal categories. Their definition derives from the philosophy of classical (enriched) Segal categories. We study their homotopy theory by giving a model structure on them. One of the motivations of introducing these structure was to have an alternative definition of higher linear categories following Segal-like methods.
We generalize Quillen's Theorem A to diagrams of lax 2-functors which commute up to transformation. It follows from a special case of this result that 2-categories are models for homotopy types.
We decribe the correspondence between normalised $ω$-operads and certain lax monoidal structures on the category of globular sets. As with ordinary monoidal categories, one has a notion of category enriched in a lax monoidal category. Within the aforementioned correspondence, we provide also an equivalence between the algebras of a given normalised $ω$-operad, and categories enriched in globular sets for the induced lax monoidal structure.
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 give a definition of the Gray tensor product in the setting of scaled simplicial sets which is associative and forms a left Quillen bifunctor with respect to the bicategorical model category of Lurie. We then introduce a notion of oplax functor in this setting, and use it in order to characterize the Gray tensor product by means of a universal property. A similar characterization was used by Gaitsgory and Rozenblyum in their definition of the Gray product, thus giving a promising lead for comparing the two settings.
We study four types of (co)cartesian fibrations of $\infty$-bicategories over a given base $\mathcal{B}$, and prove that they encode the four variance flavors of $\mathcal{B}$-indexed diagrams of $\infty$-categories. We then use this machinery to set up a general theory of 2-(co)limits for diagrams valued in an $\infty$-bicategory, capable of expressing lax, weighted and pseudo limits. When the $\infty$-bicategory at hand arises from a model category tensored over marked simplicial sets, we show that this notion of 2-(co)limit can be calculated as a suitable form of a weighted homotopy limit o…
We construct an $(\infty,2)$-version of the (lax) Gray tensor product. On the 1-categorical level, this is a binary (or more generally an $n$-ary) functor on the category of $Θ_2$-sets, and it is shown to be left Quillen with respect to Ara's model structure. Moreover we prove that this tensor product forms part of a "homotopical" (biclosed) monoidal structure, or more precisely a normal lax monoidal structure that is associative up to homotopy.
In this article we extend the theory of lax monoidal structures, also known as multitensors, and the monads on categories of enriched graphs that they give rise to. Our first principal result -- the lifting theorem for multitensors -- enables us to see the Gray tensor product of 2-categories and the Crans tensor product of Gray categories as part of this framework. We define weak n-categories with strict units by means of a notion of reduced higher operad, using the theory of algebraic weak factorisation systems. Our second principal result is to establish a lax tensor product on the category …
We prove that a (lax) bilimit of a 2-functor is characterized by the existence of a limiting contraction in the 2-category of (lax) cones over the diagram. We also investigate the notion of bifinal object and prove that a (lax) bilimit is a limiting bifinal object in the category of cones. Everything is developed in the context of marked 2-categories, so that the machinery can be applied to different levels of laxity, including pseudo-limits.
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…
This book is an introduction to 2-categories and bicategories, assuming only the most elementary aspects of category theory. A review of basic category theory is followed by a systematic discussion of 2-/bicategories, pasting diagrams, lax functors, 2-/bilimits, the Duskin nerve, 2-nerve, adjunctions and monads in bicategories, 2-monads, biequivalences, the Bicategorical Yoneda Lemma, and the Coherence Theorem for bicategories. Grothendieck fibrations and the Grothendieck construction are discussed next, followed by tricategories, monoidal bicategories, the Gray tensor product, and double cate…
