Coherence without unique normal forms

Abstract

Coherence theorems for covariant structures carried by a category have traditionally relied on the underlying term rewriting system of the structure being terminating and confluent. While this holds in a variety of cases, it is not a feature that is inherent to the coherence problem itself. This is demonstrated by the theory of iterated monoidal categories, which model iterated loop spaces and have a coherence theorem but fail to be confluent. We develop a framework for expressing coherence problems in terms of term rewriting systems equipped with a two dimensional congruence. Within this framework we provide general solutions to two related coherence theorems: Determining whether there is a decision procedure for the commutativity of diagrams in the resulting structure and determining sufficient conditions ensuring that ``all diagrams commute''. The resulting coherence theorems rely on neither the termination nor the confluence of the underlying rewriting system. We apply the theory to iterated monoidal categories and obtain a new, conceptual proof of their coherence theorem.