Autoformalizing the calculation of $\pi_3(S^2)$
We report our findings and the results of our experiment of autoformalizing the homotopy type theoretic computation of $\pi_3(S^2)$ in agda-unimath using Codex.
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arXiv subjects
Emily Riehl
Publications and source records attributed to Emily Riehl.
Directed univalence for simplicial objects in an $\infty$-topos
A fundamental component of homotopy type theory, a synthetic theory of $\infty$-groupoids, is Voevodsky's univalence axiom. Univalence characterizes the identity types in the universal fibration, a classifier for small type families: identity types in the universe are equivalent to types of equivalences. The directed univalence axiom plays a similar foundational role in simplicial type theory, a synthetic theory of $\infty$-categories. In its original form, which does not include universes or directed univalence, the simplicial type theory has semantics in categories of simplicial objects in an $\infty$-topos, with synthetic $\infty$-categories corresponding to internal $\infty$-categories. We verify that directed univalence holds in this semantic setting, constructing an equivalence between hom types in the universal left fibration and function types. In fact, we verify a higher version of this result, constructing an equivalence between homotopy coherent composites in the universal left fibration and composable sequences of functions between types. Using the technique of weighted limits, we reduce this theorem for simplicial objects in an arbitrary $\infty$-topos to calculations "on the left" with simplicial sets.
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Synthetic perspectives on spaces and categories
Recently discovered domain-specific formal systems -- specifically homotopy type theory and simplicial type theory -- provide new perspectives on spaces and categories in a natively equivalence-invariant setting. In this note, we expose fundamental proof techniques from these parallel settings: describing induction principles over paths or arrows and constructions involving universes that are either univalent or directed univalent.
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Formalizing colimits in Cat
Certain results involving "higher structures" are not currently accessible to computer formalization because the prerequisite $\infty$-category theory has not been formalized. To support future work on formalizing $\infty$-category theory in Lean's mathematics library, we formalize some fundamental constructions involving the 1-category of categories. Specifically, we construct the left adjoint to the nerve embedding of categories into simplicial sets, defining the homotopy category functor. We prove further that this adjunction is reflective, which allows us to conclude that Cat has colimits. To our knowledge this is the first formalized proof that the nerve functor is a fully faithful right adjoint and that the category of categories is cocomplete.
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The equivariant model structure on cartesian cubical sets
We develop a constructive model of homotopy type theory in a Quillen model category that classically presents the usual homotopy theory of spaces. Our model is based on presheaves over the cartesian cube category, a well-behaved Eilenberg-Zilber category. The key innovation is an additional equivariance condition in the specification of the cubical Kan fibrations, which can be described as the pullback of an interval-based class of uniform fibrations in the category of symmetric sequences of cubical sets. The main technical results in the development of our model have been formalized in a computer proof assistant.
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Cartesian exponentiation and monadicity
An important result in quasi-category theory due to Lurie is the that cocartesian fibrations are exponentiable, in the sense that pullback along a cocartesian fibration admits a right Quillen right adjoint that moreover preserves cartesian fibrations; the same is true with the cartesian and cocartesian fibrations interchanged. To explicate this classical result, we prove that the pullback along a cocartesian fibration between quasi-categories forms the oplax colimit of its "straightening," a homotopy coherent diagram valued in quasi-categories, recovering a result first observed by Gepner, Haugseng, and Nikolaus. As an application of the exponentiation operation of a cartesian fibration by a cocartesian one, we use the Yoneda lemma to construct left and right adjoints to the forgetful functor that carries a cartesian fibration over B to its obB-indexed family of fibers, and prove that this forgetful functor is monadic and comonadic. This monadicity is then applied to construct the reflection of a cartesian fibration into a groupoidal cartesian fibration, whose fibers are Kan complexes rather than quasi-categories.
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On the $\infty$-topos semantics of homotopy type theory
Many introductions to homotopy type theory and the univalence axiom gloss over the semantics of this new formal system in traditional set-based foundations. This expository article, written as lecture notes to accompany a 3-part mini course delivered at the Logic and Higher Structures workshop at CIRM-Luminy, attempts to survey the state of the art, first presenting Voevodsky's simplicial model of univalent foundations and then touring Shulman's vast generalization, which provides an interpretation of homotopy type theory with strict univalent universes in any $\infty$-topos. As we will explain, this achievement was the product of a community effort to abstract and streamline the original arguments as well as develop new lines of reasoning.
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A 2-categorical proof of Frobenius for fibrations defined from a generic point
Consider a locally cartesian closed category with an object I and a class of trivial fibrations, which admit sections and are stable under pushforward and retract as arrows. Define the fibrations to be those maps whose Leibniz exponential with the generic point of I defines a trivial fibration. Then the fibrations are also closed under pushforward.
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Formalizing the $\infty$-Categorical Yoneda Lemma
Formalized $1$-category theory forms a core component of various libraries of mathematical proofs. However, more sophisticated results in fields from algebraic topology to theoretical physics, where objects have "higher structure," rely on infinite-dimensional categories in place of $1$-dimensional categories, and $\infty$-category theory has thusfar proved unamenable to computer formalization. Using a new proof assistant called Rzk, which is designed to support Riehl-Shulman's simplicial extension of homotopy type theory for synthetic $\infty$-category theory, we provide the first formalizations of results from $\infty$-category theory. This includes in particular a formalization of the Yoneda lemma, often regarded as the fundamental theorem of category theory, a theorem which roughly states that an object of a given category is determined by its relationship to all of the other objects of the category. A key feature of our framework is that, thanks to the synthetic theory, many constructions are automatically natural or functorial. We plan to use Rzk to formalize further results from $\infty$-category theory, such as the theory of limits and colimits and adjunctions.
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A type theory for synthetic $\infty$-categories
We propose foundations for a synthetic theory of $(\infty,1)$-categories within homotopy type theory. We axiomatize a directed interval type, then define higher simplices from it and use them to probe the internal categorical structures of arbitrary types. We define Segal types, in which binary composites exist uniquely up to homotopy; this automatically ensures composition is coherently associative and unital at all dimensions. We define Rezk types, in which the categorical isomorphisms are additionally equivalent to the type-theoretic identities - a "local univalence" condition. And we define covariant fibrations, which are type families varying functorially over a Segal type, and prove a "dependent Yoneda lemma" that can be viewed as a directed form of the usual elimination rule for identity types. We conclude by studying homotopically correct adjunctions between Segal types, and showing that for a functor between Rezk types to have an adjoint is a mere proposition. To make the bookkeeping in such proofs manageable, we use a three-layered type theory with shapes, whose contexts are extended by polytopes within directed cubes, which can be abstracted over using "extension types" that generalize the path-types of cubical type theory. In an appendix, we describe the motivating semantics in the Reedy model structure on bisimplicial sets, in which our Segal and Rezk types correspond to Segal spaces and complete Segal spaces.
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Pushouts of Dwyer maps are $(\infty,1)$-categorical
The inclusion of 1-categories into $(\infty,1)$-categories fails to preserve colimits in general, and pushouts in particular. In this note, we observe that if one functor in a span of categories belongs to a certain previously-identified class of functors, then the 1-categorical pushout is preserved under this inclusion. Dwyer maps, a kind of neighborhood deformation retract of categories, were used by Thomason in the construction of his model structure on 1-categories. Thomason previously observed that the nerves of such pushouts have the correct weak homotopy type. We refine this result and show that the weak homotopical equivalence is a weak categorical equivalence. We also identify a more general class of functors along which 1-categorical pushouts are $(\infty,1)$-categorical.
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Could $\infty$-category theory be taught to undergraduates?
The extension of ordinary category theory to $\infty$-categories at the start of the 21st century was a spectacular achievement pioneered by Joyal and Lurie with contributions from many others. Unfortunately, the technical arguments required to solve the infinite homotopy coherence problems inherent in these results make this theory difficult for non-experts to learn. This essay surveys two programs that seek to narrow the gap between $\infty$-category theory and ordinary 1-category theory. The first leverages similarities between the categories in which 1-categories and $\infty$-categories live as objects to provide "formal" proofs of standard categorical theorems. The second, which is considerably more speculative, explores $\infty$-categories from new "univalent" foundations closely related to homotopy type theory.
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Homotopy coherent structures
Naturally occurring diagrams in algebraic topology are commutative up to homotopy, but not on the nose. It was quickly realized that very little can be done with this information. Homotopy coherent category theory arose out of a desire to catalog the higher homotopical information required to restore constructibility (or more precisely, functoriality) in such "up to homotopy" settings. These notes provide a three-part introduction to homotopy coherent category theory. The first part surveys the classical theory of homotopy coherent diagrams of topological spaces. The second part introduces the homotopy coherent nerve and connects it to the free resolutions used to define homotopy coherent diagrams. This connection explains why diagrams valued in homotopy coherent nerves or more general $\infty$-categories are automatically homotopy coherent. The final part ventures into homotopy coherent algebra, connecting the newly discovered notion of homotopy coherent adjunction to the classical cobar and bar resolutions for homotopy coherent algebras.
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An $(\infty,2)$-categorical pasting theorem
We show that any pasting diagram in any $(\infty,2)$-category has a homotopically unique composite. This is achieved by showing that the free 2-category generated by a pasting scheme is the homotopy colimit of its cells as an $(\infty,2)$-category. We prove this explicitly in the simplicial categories model and then explain how to deduce the model-independent statement from that calculation.
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On $\infty$-cosmoi of bicategories
An $\infty$-cosmos is a setting in which to develop the formal category theory of $(\infty,1)$-categories. In this paper, we explore a few atypical examples of $\infty$-cosmoi whose objects are 2-categories or bicategories rather than $(\infty,1)$-categories and compare the formal category theory that is so-encoded with classical 2-category and bicategory theory. We hope this work will inform future explorations into formal $(\infty,2)$-category theory.
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On the construction of limits and colimits in $\infty$-categories
In previous work, we introduce an axiomatic framework within which to prove theorems about many varieties of infinite-dimensional categories simultaneously. In this paper, we establish criteria implying that an $\infty$-category - for instance, a quasi-category, a complete Segal space, or a Segal category - is complete and cocomplete, admitting limits and colimits indexed by any small simplicial set. Our strategy is to build (co)limits of diagrams indexed by a simplicial set inductively from (co)limits of restricted diagrams indexed by the pieces of its skeletal filtration. We show directly that the modules that express the universal properties of (co)limits of diagrams of these shapes are reconstructable as limits of the modules that express the universal properties of (co)limits of the restricted diagrams. We also prove that the Yoneda embedding preserves and reflects limits in a suitable sense, and deduce our main theorems as a consequence.
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Homotopical categories: from model categories to $(\infty,1)$-categories
This chapter, written for "Stable categories and structured ring spectra," edited by Andrew J. Blumberg, Teena Gerhardt, and Michael A. Hill, surveys the history of homotopical categories, from Gabriel and Zisman's categories of fractions to Quillen's model categories, through Dwyer and Kan's simplicial localizations and culminating in $(\infty,1)$-categories, first introduced through concrete models and later re-conceptualized in a model-independent framework. This reader is not presumed to have prior acquaintance with any of these concepts. Suggested exercises are included to fertilize intuitions and copious references point to external sources with more details. A running theme of homotopy limits and colimits is included to explain the kinds of problems homotopical categories are designed to solve as well as technical approaches to these problems.
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Recognizing quasi-categorical limits and colimits in homotopy coherent nerves
In this paper we prove that various quasi-categories whose objects are $\infty$-categories in a very general sense are complete: admitting limits indexed by all simplicial sets. This result and others of a similar flavor follow from a general theorem in which we characterize the data that is required to define a limit cone in a quasi-category constructed as a homotopy coherent nerve. Since all quasi-categories arise this way up to equivalence, this analysis covers the general case. Namely, we show that quasi-categorical limit cones may be modeled at the point-set level by pseudo homotopy limit cones, whose shape is governed by the weight for pseudo limits over a homotopy coherent diagram but with the defining universal property up to equivalence, rather than isomorphism, of mapping spaces. Our applications follow from the fact that the $(\infty,1)$-categorical core of an $\infty$-cosmos admits weighted homotopy limits for all flexible weights, which includes in particular the weight for pseudo cones.
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