Syntactic approaches to opetopes

Abstract

Opetopes are algebraic descriptions of shapes corresponding to compositions in higher dimensions. As such, they offer an approach to higher-dimensional algebraic structures, and in particular, to the definition of weak $\omega$-categories, which was the original motivation for their introduction by Baez and Dolan. They are classically defined inductively (as free operads in Leinster's approach, or as zoom complexes in the formalism of Kock et al.), using abstract constructions making them difficult to manipulate with a computer. In this paper, we present two purely syntactic descriptions of opetopes as sequent calculi, the first using variables to implement the compositional nature of opetopes, the second using a calculus of higher addresses. We prove that well-typed sequents in both systems are in bijection with opetopes as defined in the more traditional approaches. Additionally, we propose three variants to describe opetopic sets. We expect that the resulting structures can serve as natural foundations for mechanized tools based on opetopes.