The homotopy type of the cobordism category

Soren Galatius; Ib Madsen; Ulrike Tillmann; Michael Weiss

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · math/0605249

The homotopy type of the cobordism category

Soren Galatius·Ib Madsen·Ulrike Tillmann·Michael Weiss

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The embedded cobordism category under study in this paper generalizes the category of conformal surfaces, introduced by G. Segal in order to formalize the concept of field theories. Our main result identifies the homotopy type of the classifying space of the embedded d-dimensional cobordism category for all d. For d=2, our results lead to a new proof of the generalized Mumford conjecture, somewhat different in spirit from the original one.

Explore related subjects

math.AT

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Soren Galatius, Ib Madsen, Ulrike Tillmann, Michael Weiss. 2010-09-21. The homotopy type of the cobordism category. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0605249

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Homogeneous Milnor fibers and Kato--Matsumoto bounds via simplicial multiwedges

For every $n\geq 3$ and $s\geq 2$, we construct a homogeneous polynomial of degree $n(n+1)/2$ whose Milnor fiber is exactly $2s$-connected and whose rational cohomology contains a strictly defined nontrivial $n$-fold Massey product on classes of degree $2s+1$, implying that the Milnor fiber is non-formal, while attaining the Kato--Matsumoto connectivity bound. Our construction is based on the simplicial multiwedges of the nerve complexes of simple polytopes introduced by Limonchenko, combined with Suciu's realization of weighted homogeneous Milnor fibers. We thereby answer two problems posed by Suciu.

math.AT↗

arXiv2026

The homotopy types of directed path and trace spaces

We construct a saturated directed space with a Hausdorff $\Delta$-generated underlying space and two distinct points such that the trace space between them is homeomorphic to a square, whereas the directed path space has a nontrivial fundamental group. In particular, the canonical quotient map is not a weak homotopy equivalence. The same conclusion holds for regular directed paths modulo increasing homeomorphisms.

math.AT↗

arXiv2026

Moduli spaces of geometric functorial field theories

We develop tools to compute moduli spaces of geometric functorial field theories as mapping spaces of equivariant simplicial presheaves. Given a d-dimensional geometric structure F, presented as a presheaf on the site of smooth families of d-manifolds, we define its Cartesian realization, which is an O(d)-equivariant simplicial presheaf on the site of Cartesian spaces. We use Cartesian realizations to present the moduli space of functorial field theories with geometric structure F as a mapping space between O(d)-equivariant simplicial presheaves. In a companion paper, we use this result to compute the moduli space of smooth one-dimensional oriented Riemannian functorial field theories valued in an arbitrary smooth symmetric monoidal infinity-category.

math.AT↗