This is a (slightly edited) version of the PhD dissertation of the author, submitted to Brown University in July 2005.
We construct a homotopy calculus of functors in the sense of Goodwillie for the categories of rational homotopy theory. More precisely, given a homotopy functor between any of the categories of differential graded vector spaces (DG), reduced differential graded vector spaces, differential graded Lie algebras (DGL), and differential graded coalgebras (DGC), we show that there is an associated approximating "rational Taylor tower" of excisive functors. The fibers in this tower are homogeneous functors which factor as homogeneous endomorphisms of the category of differential graded vector spaces. Furthermore, we develop very straightforward and simple models for all of the objects in this tower. Constructing these models entails first building very simple models for homotopy pushouts and pullbacks in the categories DG, DGL, and DGC. We end with a short example of the usefulness of our computationally simple models for rational Taylor towers, as well as a preview of some further results dealing with the structure of rational (and non-rational) Taylor towers.
We develop a functorial approach to the study of the homotopy groups of spheres and Moore spaces $M(A,n)$, based on the Curtis spectral sequence and the decomposition of Lie functors as iterates of simpler functors such as the symmetric or exterior algebra functors. The discussion takes place over the integers, and includes a functorial description of the derived functors of certain Lie algebra functors, as well as of all the main cubical functors (such as the degree 3 component $SP^3$ of the symmetric algebra functor). As an illustration of this method, we retrieve in a purely algebraic manne…
Fix a prime $p$. Since their definition in the context of Localization Theory, the homotopy functors $P_{B\Z/p}$ and $CW_{B\Z/p}$ have shown to be powerful tools to understand and describe the mod $p$ structure of a space. In this paper, we study the effect of these functors on a wide class of spaces which includes classifying spaces of compact Lie groups and their homotopical analogues. Moreover, we investigate their relationship in this context with other relevant functors in the analysis of the mod $p$ homotopy, such as Bousfield-Kan completion and Bousfield homological localization.
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 …
Goodwillie's homotopy functor calculus constructs a Taylor tower of approximations to F, often a functor from spaces to spaces. Weiss's orthogonal calculus provides a Taylor tower for functors from vector spaces to spaces. In particular, there is a Weiss tower associated to the functor which sends a vector space V to F evaluated at the one-point compactification of V. In this paper, we give a comparison of these two towers and show that when F is analytic the towers agree up to weak equivalence. We include two main applications, one of which gives as a corollary the convergence of the Weiss Ta…
We first show that simply connected co-$H$-spaces and connected $H$-spaces can be uniquely decomposed into prime factors in the homotopy category of pointed $p$-local spaces of finite type, which is used to develop a $p$-local version of Gray's correspondence between homotopy types of prime co-$H$-spaces and homotopy types of prime $H$-spaces, and the split fibration which connects them as well. Further, we use the unique decomposition theorem to study the homotopy rigidity problem for classic functors. Among others, we prove that $ΣΩ$ and $Ω$ are homotopy rigid on simply connected $p$-local c…
We construct a calculus of functors in the spirit of orthogonal calculus, which is designed to study "functors with reality" such as the Real classifying space functor, $BU_\mathbb{R}(-)$. The calculus produces a Taylor tower, the $n$-th layer of which is classified by a spectrum with an action of $C_2 \ltimes U(n)$. We further give model categorical considerations, producing a zig-zag of Quillen equivalences between spectra with an action of $C_2 \ltimes U(n)$ and a model structure on the category of input functors which captures the homotopy theory of the $n$-th layer of the Taylor tower.
In this paper we prove two theorems which resemble the classical cohomological and homological Brown representability theorems. The main difference is that our results classify small contravariant functors from spaces to spaces up to weak equivalence of functors. In more detail, we show that every small contravariant functor from spaces to spaces which takes coproducts to products up to homotopy and takes homotopy pushouts to homotopy pullbacks is naturally weekly equivalent to a representable functor. The second representability theorem states: every contravariant continuous functor from the …
To every homotopy n-nilpotent group, defined in earlier work by Dwyer and the author, we associate an endofunctor of pointed spaces and prove that it is looped and n-excisive. As a tool we prove that $ΩP_n({\rm id})$ commutes with sifted colimits of connected spaces.
We distinguish between faint, weak, strong and strict localizations of categories at morphism families and show that this framework captures the different types of derived functors that are considered in the literature. More precisely, we show that Kan and faint derived functors coincide when we use the classical Kan homotopy category, and when we use the Quillen homotopy category, Kan and strong derived functors coincide. Our comparison results are based on the fact that the Kan homotopy category is a weak localization and that the Quillen homotopy category is a strict localization.
For a smooth manifold M, we define a topological space X(k,M), and show that polynomial functors O(M)--> C of degree <= k from the poset of open subsets of M to a simplicial model category can be classified be a version of linear functors from O(X(k,M)) to C.
In this paper, we prove an equivariant version of the classical Dold-Thom theorem. Associated to a finite group, a CW-complex on which this group acts and a covariant coefficient system in the sense of Bredon, we functorially construct a topological abelian group by the coend construction. Then we prove that the homotopy groups of this topological abelian group are naturally isomorphic to the Bredon equivariant homology of the CW-complex. At the end we present several examples of this result.
We present an introduction to the manifold calculus of functors, due to Goodwillie and Weiss. Our perspective focuses on the role the derivatives of a functor F play in this theory, and the analogies with ordinary calculus. We survey the construction of polynomial functors, the classification of homogeneous functors, and results regarding convergence of the Taylor tower. We sprinkle examples throughout, and pay special attention to spaces of smooth embeddings.
We formulate and prove a chain rule for the derivative, in the sense of Goodwillie, of compositions of weak homotopy functors from simplicial sets to simplicial sets. The derivative spectrum dF(X) of such a functor F at a simplicial set X can be equipped with a right action by the loop group of its domain X, and a free left action by the loop group of its codomain Y = F(X). The derivative spectrum d(E o F)(X)$ of a composite of such functors is then stably equivalent to the balanced smash product of the derivatives dE(Y) and dF(X), with respect to the two actions of the loop group of Y. As an …
We show that the category of $n$-excisive functors from the $\infty$-category of spectra to a target stable $\infty$-category $\mathbf{E}$ is equivalent to the category of $\mathbf{E}$-valued Mackey functors on an indexing category built from finite sets and surjections. This new classification of polynomial functors arises from an investigation of the structure present on cross effects. The path to this result involves a pair of surprising extension theorems for polynomial functors and a discussion of some interesting topics in semiadditive $\infty$- category theory, including a formula for t…
The discriminant method is a tool for describing the cohomology, or the homotopy type, of certain spaces of smooth maps with uncomplicated singularities from a smooth compact manifold L to R^k. We recast some of it in the language of functor calculus. This reformulation allows us to use the discriminant method in a setting where we wish to impose conditions on the multilocal behavior of smooth maps f from L to R^k.
This is a continuation, completion, and generalization of our previous joint work with B. Chorny. We supply model structures and Quillen equivalences underlying Goodwillie's constructions on the homotopy level for functors between simplicial model categories satisfying mild hypotheses.
Let G be a discrete group for which the classifying space for proper G-actions is finite-dimensional. We find a space W such that for any such G, the classifying space PBG for proper G-bundles has the homotopy type of the W-nullification of BG. We use this to deduce some results concerning PBG and in some cases where there is a good model for PBG we obtain information about the BZ/p-nullification of BG.
We show that every small homotopy functor from spectra to spectra is weakly equivalent to a filtered colimit of representable functors represented in cofibrant spectra. Moreover, we present this classification as a Quillen equivalence of the category of small functors from spectra to spectra equipped with the homotopy model structure and the opposite of the pro-category of spectra with the strict model structure.
Recently, the Johnson-McCarthy discrete calculus for homotopy functors was extended to include functors from an unbased simplicial model category to spectra. This paper completes the constructions needed to ensure that there exists a discrete calculus tower for functors from an unbased simplicial model category to chain complexes over a fixed commutative ring. Much of the construction of the Taylor tower for functors to spectra carries over to this context. However, one of the essential steps in the construction requires proving that a particular functor is part of a cotriple. For this, one ne…
Manifold calculus is a form of functor calculus concerned with functors from some category of manifolds to spaces. A weakness in the original formulation is that it is not continuous in the sense that it does not handle well the natural enrichments. In this paper, we correct this by defining an enriched version of manifold calculus which essentially extends the discrete setting. Along the way, we recast the Taylor tower as a tower of homotopy sheafifications. As a spin-off we obtain a natural connection to operads: the limit of the Taylor tower is a certain (derived) space of right module maps…
Like categories, small 2-categories have well-understood classifying spaces. In this paper, we deal with homotopy types represented by 2-diagrams of 2-categories. Our results extend to homotopy colimits of 2-functors lower categorical analogues that have been classically used in algebraic topology and algebraic K-theory, such as the Homotopy Invariance Theorem (by Bousfield and Kan), the Homotopy Colimit Theorem (Thomason), Theorems A and B (Quillen), or the Homotopy Cofinality Theorem (Hirschhorn).
We study functors from spaces to spaces or spectra that preserve weak homotopy equivalences. For each such functor we construct a universal n-excisive approximation, which may be thought of as its n-excisive part. Homogeneous functors, meaning n-excisive functors with trivial (n-1)-excisive part, can be classified: they correspond to symmetric functors of n variables that are reduced and 1-excisive in each variable. We discuss some important examples, including the identity functor and Waldhausen's algebraic K-theory.
It is known that in the integral cohomology of BSO(2m), the square of the Euler class is the same as the Pontryagin class in degree 4m. Given that the Pontryagin classes extend rationally to the cohomology of BSTOP(2m), it is reasonable to ask whether the same relation between the Euler class and the Pontryagin class in degree 4m is still valid in the rational cohomology of BSTOP(2m). In this paper we use smoothing theory and tools from homotopy theory to reformulate the hypothesis, and variants, in a differential topology setting and in a functor calculus setting.
In this paper we present background results in enriched category theory and enriched model category theory necessary for developing model categories of enriched functors suitable for doing functor calculus.
This paper contains some contributions to the study of the relationship between 2-categories and the homotopy types of their classifying spaces. Mainly, generalizations are given of both Quillen's Theorem B and Thomason's Homotopy Colimit Theorem to 2-functors.
We introduce a computationally tractable way to describe the $\mathbb Z$-homotopy fixed points of a $C_{n}$-spectrum $E$, producing a genuine $C_{n}$ spectrum $E^{hn\mathbb Z}$ whose fixed and homotopy fixed points agree and are the $\mathbb Z$-homotopy fixed points of $E$. These form a piece of a contravariant functor from the divisor poset of $n$ to genuine $C_{n}$-spectra, and when $E$ is an $N_{\infty}$-ring spectrum, this functor lifts to a functor of $N_{\infty}$-ring spectra. For spectra like the Real Johnson--Wilson theories or the norms of Real bordism, the slice spectral sequence pro…
The category of topological spaces endowed with two marked points is equipped with two families $\mathbf F_n$ and $\mathbf H_n$ of functors to the category of abelian groups, indexed by a nonnegative integer $n$: namely, the functor $\mathbf F_n$ takes the object $(X,x,y)$ to the quotient of $\mathbb Zπ_1(X,x,y)$ by an abelian subgroup associated with the $n+1$-st power of the augmentation ideal of the group algebra $\mathbb Zπ_1(X,x)$, and the functor $\mathbf H_n$ takes the same object to the $n$-th singular homology group of $X^n$ relative to a subspace defined in terms of partial diagonals…
In this paper we recover Bousfield's computation of $ν_1$-periodic homotopy groups of simply connected, finite $H$-spaces from \cite{Bou99} using the techniques of Goodwillie calculus. This is done through first computing André-Quillen cohomology over the monad $\mathbb{T}$ that encodes the power operations of complex $K$-theory. Then lifting this computation to computing $K$-theory of topological André-Quillen cohomology, and then using results of Behrens and Rezk relating it back to the Bousfield-Kuhn functor. The fact that we recovers the result of Bousfield allows us to conclude $ν_1$-peri…
Manifold calculus of functors, due to M. Weiss, studies contravariant functors from the poset of open subsets of a smooth manifold to topological spaces. We introduce "multivariable" manifold calculus of functors which is a generalization of this theory to functors whose domain is a product of categories of open sets. We construct multivariable Taylor approximations to such functors, classify multivariable homogeneous functors, apply this classification to compute the derivatives of a functor, and show what this gives for the space of link maps. We also relate Taylor approximations in single v…
Manifold calculus is a form of functor calculus that analyzes contravariant functors from some categories of manifolds to topological spaces by providing analytic approximations to them. In this paper, using the technique of the $h$-principle, we show that for a symplectic manifold $N$, the analytic approximation to the Lagrangian embeddings functor $\mathrm{Emb}_{\mathrm{Lag}}(-,N)$ is the totally real embeddings functor $\mathrm{Emb}_{\mathrm{TR}}(-,N)$. More generally, for subsets $\mathcal{A}$ of the $m$-plane Grassmannian bundle $\mathrm{Gr}(m,TN)$ for which the $h$-principle holds for $\…
We study a connection between mapping spaces of bimodules and of infinitesimal bimodules over an operad. As main application and motivation of our work, we produce an explicit delooping of the manifold calculus tower associated to the space of smooth maps $D^{m}\rightarrow D^{n}$ of discs, $n\geq m$, avoiding any given multisingularity and coinciding with the standard inclusion near $\partial D^{m}$. In particular, we give a new proof of the delooping of the space of disc embeddings in terms of little discs operads maps with the advantage that it can be applied to more general mapping spaces.
In this paper, we investigate the properties of the category of equivariant diagram spectra indexed on the category W_G of based G-spaces homeomorphic to finite G-CW-complexes for a compact Lie group G. Using the machinery of Mandell, May, Schwede, and Shipley, we show that there is a "stable model structure" on this category of diagram spectra which admits a monoidal Quillen equivalence to the category of orthogonal G-spectra. We construct a second "absolute stable model structure" which is Quillen equivalent to the "stable model structure". Our main result is a concrete identification of the…
We survey and extend the theory of Tambara functors. These are algebraic structures similar to Mackey functors, but with multiplicative norm maps as well as additive transfer maps, and a rule governing their interaction that is most easily formulated in an abstract categorical framework. Examples include Burnside rings, representation rings, and homotopy groups of equivariant E-infinity ring spectra in stable homotopy theory. Some other examples are related to Witt rings in the sense of Dress and Siebeneicher.
Embedding Calculus, as described by Weiss, is a calculus of functors, suitable for studying contravariant functors from the poset of open subsets of a smooth manifold M, denoted O(M), to a category of topological spaces (of which the functor Emb(-,N) for some fixed manifold N is a prime example). Polynomial functors of degree k can be characterized by their restriction to O_k(M), the full subposet of O(M) consisting of open sets which are a disjoint union of at most k components, each diffeomorphic to the open unit ball. In this work, we replace O_k(M) by more general subposets and see that we…
We establish natural splittings for the values of global Mackey functors at orthogonal, unitary and symplectic groups. In particular, the restriction homomorphisms between the orthogonal, unitary and symplectic groups of adjacent dimensions are naturally split epimorphisms. The interest in the splitting comes from equivariant stable homotopy theory. The equivariant stable homotopy groups of every global spectrum form a global Mackey functor, so the splittings imply that certain long exact homotopy group sequences separate into short exact sequences. For the real and complex global Thom spectra…
We show that one can use model categories to construct rational orthogonal calculus. That is, given a continuous functor from vector spaces to based spaces one can construct a tower of approximations to this functor depending only on the rational homology type of the input functor, whose layers are given by rational spectra with an action of $O(n)$. By work of Greenlees and Shipley, we see that these layers are classified by torsion $H^*(B SO(n))[O(n)/SO(n)]$-modules.
It is well known that the zeroth stable homotopy group of a genuine equivariant commutative ring spectrum has multiplicative transfers (norms), making it into a Tambara functor. We prove here that all Tambara functors can be obtained in this way. In fact, we prove that the homotopy category of Eilenberg MacLane commutative ring spectra is equivalent to the category of Tambara functors. Several algebraic results on Tambara functors are derived as corollaries. Finally, we rule out the existence of a lax symmetric monoidal construction for Eilenberg MacLane spectra when the group is nontrivial.
Given a compact manifold X, the set of simple manifold structures on X x Δ^k relative to the boundary can be viewed as the k-th homotopy group of a space §^s (X). This space is called the block structure space of X. We study the block structure spaces of real projective spaces. Generalizing Wall's join construction we show that there is a functor from the category of finite dimensional real vector spaces with inner product to the category of pointed spaces which sends the vector space V to the block structure space of the projective space of V. We study this functor from the point of view of o…
Let M be a smooth manifold, and let O(M) be the poset of open subsets of M. Let C be a category that has a zero object and all small limits. A homogeneous functor (in the sense of manifold calculus) of degree k from O(M) to C is called very good if it sends isotopy equivalences to isomorphisms. In this paper we show that the category VGHF of such functors is equivalent to the category of contravariant functors from the fundamental groupoid of Conf(k, M) to C, where Conf(k, M) stands for the unordered configuration space of k points in M. As a consequence of this result, we show that the catego…
Let M be a smooth manifold and V a Euclidean space. Let Ebar(M,V) be the homotopy fiber of the map from Emb(M,V) to Imm(M,V). This paper is about the rational homology of Ebar(M,V). We study it by applying embedding calculus and orthogonal calculus to the bi-functor (M,V) |--> HQ /\Ebar(M,V)_+. Our main theorem states that if the dimension of V is more than twice the embedding dimension of M, the Taylor tower in the sense of orthogonal calculus (henceforward called ``the orthogonal tower'') of this functor splits as a product of its layers. Equivalently, the rational homology spectral sequence…
We call attention to the intermediate constructions $\T_n F$ in Goodwillie's Calculus of homotopy functors, giving a new model which naturally gives rise to a family of towers filtering the Taylor Tower of a functor. We also establish a surprising equivalence between the homotopy inverse limits of these towers and the homotopy inverse limits of certain cosimplicial resolutions. This equivalence gives a greatly simplified construction for the homotopy inverse limit of the Taylor tower of a functor $F$ under general assumptions.
Given a simplicial group G, there are two known classifying simplicial set constructions, the Kan classifying simplicial set Wbar G and Diag N G, where N denotes the dimensionwise nerve. They are known to be weakly homotopy equivalent. We will show that Wbar G is a strong simplicial deformation retract of Diag N G. In particular, Wbar G and Diag N G are simplicially homotopy equivalent.
Let $D$ be a large category which is cocomplete. We construct a model structure (in the sense of Quillen) on the category of small functors from $D$ to simplicial sets. As an application we construct homotopy localization functors on the category of simplicial sets which satisfy a stronger universal property than the customary homotopy localization functors do.
In the mid 1980's, Pete Bousfield and I constructed certain p--local `telescopic' functors Phi_n from spaces to spectra, for each prime p and each positive integer n. These have striking properties that relate the chromatic approach to homotopy theory to infinite loopspace theory: roughly put, the spectrum Phi_n(Z) captures the v_n periodic homotopy of a space Z. Recently there have been a variety of new uses of these functors, suggesting that they have a central role to play in calculations of periodic phenomena. Here I offer a guide to their construction, characterization, application, and c…
We give an overview of how calculus of the embedding functor can be used for the study of long knots and summarize various results connecting the calculus approach to the rational homotopy type of spaces of long knots, collapse of the Vassiliev spectral sequence, Hochschild homology of the Poisson operad, finite type knot invariants, etc. Some open questions and conjectures of interest are given throughout.
We show that the spectrum constructed by Everitt and Turner as a possible Khovanov homotopy type is a product of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces and is thus determined by Khovanov homology. By using the Dold-Thom functor it can therefore be obtained from the Khovanov homotopy type constructed by Lipshitz and Sarkar.
We call a diagram D absolutely cartesian if F(D) is homotopy cartesian for all homotopy functors F. This is a sensible notion for diagrams in categories C where Goodwillie's calculus of functors may be set up for functors with domain C. We prove a classification theorem for absolutely cartesian squares of spaces and state a conjecture of the classification for higher dimensional cubes.
We study the subcategory of topological operads $P$ such that $P(0) = *$ (the category of unitary operads in our terminology). We use that this category inherits a model structure, like the category of all operads in topological spaces, and that the embedding functor of this subcategory of unitary operads into the category of all operads admits a left Quillen adjoint. We prove that the derived functor of this left Quillen adjoint functor induces a left inverse of the derived functor of our category embedding at the homotopy category level. We deduce from this result that the derived mapping sp…
We define an ``algebraic'' version of the Goodwillie tower, P_n^alg F(X), that depends only on the behavior of F on coproducts of X. When F is a functor to connected spaces or grouplike H-spaces, the functor P_n^alg F is the base of a fibration whose fiber is the simplicial space associated to a cotriple built from the (n+1) cross effect of the functor F. When the connectivity of X is large enough (for example, when F is the identity functor and X is connected), the algebraic Goodwillie tower agrees with the ordinary (topological) Goodwillie tower, so this theory gives a way of studying the Go…
