Many examples of obstruction theory can be formulated as the study of when a lift exists in a commutative square. Typically, one of the maps is a cofibration of some sort and the opposite map is a fibration, and there is a functorial obstruction class that determines whether a lift exists. Working in an arbitrary pointed proper model category, we classify the cofibrations that have such an obstruction theory with respect to all fibrations. Up to weak equivalence, retract, and cobase change, they are the cofibrations with weakly contractible target. Equivalently, they are the retracts of principal cofibrations. Without properness, the same classification holds for cofibrations with cofibrant source. Our results dualize to give a classification of fibrations that have an obstruction theory.
In this note we introduce a notion of free cofibrations of permutative categories. We show that each cofibration of permutative categories is a retract of a free cofibration.
We show that the quasicategory of frames of a cofibration category, introduced by the second-named author, is equivalent to its simplicial localization.
We prove that the homotopy prederivator of a cofibration category is equivalent to the homotopy prederivator of its associated quasi-category of frames, as introduced by Szumiło. We use this comparison result to deduce various abstract properties of the obtained prederivators.
Cofibration categories are a formalization of homotopy theory useful for dealing with homotopy colimits that exist on the level of models as colimits of cofibrant diagrams. In this paper, we deal with their enriched version. Our main result claims that the category $[\mathcal{C},\mathcal{M}]$ of enriched diagrams equipped with the projective structure inherits a structure of a cofibration category whenever $\mathcal{C}$ is locally cofibrant (or, more generally, locally flat).
In [BaSc2] the authors introduced a much weaker homotopical structure than a model category, called a "weak cofibration category". We further showed that a small weak cofibration category induces in a natural way a model category structure on its ind-category, provided the ind-category satisfies a certain two out of three property. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a companion to the papers above, proving results which say that if a certain property or structure exists in the weak cofibration category, then the same property or structure also holds in the induced model structure on the …
We give an explicit way of calculating the set of homotopy classes of morphisms from a Tamsamani n-category A to another one B. This calculation uses a Reedy-cofibrant cosimplicial resolution of A, using a new notion of ``free cofibration'' of n-precats. The free cofibrations of n-precats seem to be the analogue for n-categories of the Bousfield-Kan cofibrations in the theory of diagrams.
We prove that relative functors out of a cofibration category are essentially the same as relative functors which are only defined on the subcategory of cofibrations. As an application we give a new construction of the functor that assigns to a groupoid its groupoid $C^*$-algebra and thereby its topological $K$-theory spectrum.
We define Anderson-Brown-Cisinski (ABC) cofibration categories, and construct homotopy colimits of diagrams of objects in ABC cofibration categories. Homotopy colimits for Quillen model categories are obtained as a particular case. We attach to each ABC cofibration category a left Heller derivator. A dual theory is developed for homotopy limits in ABC fibration categories and for right Heller derivators. These constructions provide a natural framework for 'doing homotopy theory' in ABC (co)fibration categories.
We prove, without set theoretic assumptions, that every locally presentable category C endowed with a tractable cofibrantly generated class of cofibrations has a unique minimal (or left induced) Quillen model structure. More generally, for any set S of arrows in C we construct the minimal model structure on C with the prescribed cofibrations and making all the arrows of S weak equivalences. We describe its class of equivalences as the "smallest Cisinski localizer containing S". Our proof rely on a careful use of the fat small object argument and J.~Lurie's "good colimits" technology and on the…
In [BaSc2], the author and Tomer Schlank introduced a much weaker homotopical structure than a model category, which we called a "weak cofibration category". We further showed that a small weak cofibration category induces in a natural way a model category structure on its indcategory, provided the ind-category satisfies a certain two out of three property. The main purpose of this paper is to give sufficient intrinsic conditions on a weak cofibration category for this two out of three property to hold. We consider an application to the category of compact metrizable spaces, and thus obtain a …
We prove that the homotopy theory of cofibration categories is equivalent to the homotopy theory of cocomplete quasicategories. This is achieved by presenting both homotopy theories as fibration categories and constructing an explicit equivalence between them.
In this paper we explain certain systematic differences between algebraic and topological triangulated categories. A triangulated category is algebraic if it admits a differential graded model, and topological if it admits a model in the form of a stable cofibration category. The precise statements use the 'n-order' of a triangulated category, for a natural number n. The n-order is a non-negative integer (or infinity) and measures `how strongly' n annihilates objects of the form Y/n. We show the following results: the n-order of an algebraic triangulated category is infinite; for every prime p…
If M is a model category and Z is an object of M, then there are model category structures on the category of objects of M over Z and the category of objects of M under Z under which a map is a cofibration, fibration, or weak equivalence if and only if its image in M under the forgetful functor is, respectively, a cofibration, fibration, or weak equivalence. It is asserted without proof in "Model categories and their localizations" that if M is cofibrantly generated, cellular, or proper, then so is the category of objects of M over Z. The purpose of this note is to fill in the proofs of those …
In this paper, we define a generalization of indexed categories and contextual categories which we call contextually indexed (contextual) categories. While contextual categories are models of ordinary type theories, contextually indexed (contextual) categories are models of indexed type theories. We also define type-theoretic semi-fibration categories which generalize type-theoretic fibration categories. Every model category in which cofibrations are stable under pullbacks is a type-theoretic semi-fibration category. We show that type-theoretic semi-fibration category gives rise to a contextua…
Goerss--Hopkins obstruction theory is a powerful tool for constructing structured ring spectra from purely algebraic data. Using the formalism of model $\infty$-categories, we provide a generalization that applies in an arbitrary presentably symmetric monoidal stable $\infty$-category (such as that of equivariant spectra or of motivic spectra).
We introduce notions of finiteness obstruction, Euler characteristic, L^2-Euler characteristic, and Möbius inversion for wide classes of categories. The finiteness obstruction of a category Gamma of type (FP) is a class in the projective class group K_0(RGamma); the functorial Euler characteristic and functorial L^2-Euler characteristic are respectively its RGamma-rank and L^2-rank. We also extend the second author's K-theoretic Möbius inversion from finite categories to quasi-finite categories. Our main example is the proper orbit category, for which these invariants are established notions i…
In this paper we relate triangulated category structures to the cohomology of small categories and define initial obstructions to the existence of an algebraic or topological enhancement. We show that these obstructions do not vanish in an example of triangulated category without models. We also obtain cohomological characterizations of pre-triangulated DG, A-infinity, and spectral categories.
By inspiring ourselves in Drinfeld's DG quotient, we develop Postnikov towers, k-invariants and an obstruction theory for dg categories. As an application, we obtain the following `rigidification' theorem: let A be a homologically connective dg category and F:B -> H0(A) a dg functor to its homotopy category. If the family of obstruction classes vanishes, then a lift for F exists.
In finitely cocomplete homological categories, co-smash products give rise to (possibly higher-order) commutators of subobjects. We use binary and ternary co-smash products and the associated commutators to give characterisations of internal crossed modules and internal categories, respectively. The ternary terms are redundant if the category has the Smith is Huq property, which means that two equivalence relations on a given object commute precisely when their normalisations do. In fact, we show that the difference between the Smith commutator of such relations and the Huq commutator of their…
Schlichting conjectured that the negative K-groups of small abelian categories vanish and proved this for noetherian abelian categories and for all abelian categories in degree $-1$. The main results of this paper are that $K_{-1}(E)$ vanishes when $E$ is a small stable $\infty$-category with a bounded t-structure and that $K_{-n}(E)$ vanishes for all $n\geq 1$ when additionally the heart of $E$ is noetherian. It follows that Barwick's theorem of the heart holds for nonconnective K-theory spectra when the heart is noetherian. We give several applications, to non-existence results for bounded t…
In this paper we provide an explicit general construction of higher homotopy operations in model categories, which include classical examples such as (long) Toda brackets and (iterated) Massey products, but also cover unpointed operations not usually considered in this context. We show how such operations, thought of as obstructions to rectifying a homotopy-commutative diagram, can be defined in terms of a double induction, yielding intermediate obstructions as well.
In part I, using the theory of $\infty$-categories, we constructed a natural ``continuous action'' of $\operatorname {Ham} (M, ω) $ on the Fukaya category of a closed monotone symplectic manifold. Here we show that this action is generally homotopically non-trivial, i.e implicitly the main part of a conjecture of Teleman. We use this to give various applications. For example we find new curvature constraint phenomena for smooth and singular $\mathcal{G}$-connections on principal $\mathcal{G}$-bundles over $S ^{4}$, where $\mathcal{G}$ is $\operatorname {PU} (2)$ or $\operatorname {Ham} (S ^{2}…
We provide a general definition of Toda brackets in a pointed model categories, show how they serve as obstructions to rectification, and explain their relation to the classical stable operations.
