arXiv subjects

Emily Riehl

Publications and source records attributed to Emily Riehl.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Infinity category theory from scratch

We use the terms "$\infty$-categories" and "$\infty$-functors" to mean the objects and morphisms in an "$\infty$-cosmos." Quasi-categories, Segal categories, complete Segal spaces, naturally marked simplicial sets, iterated complete Segal spaces, $θ_n$-spaces, and fibered versions of each of these are all $\infty$-categories in this sense. We show that the basic category theory of $\infty$-categories and $\infty$-functors can be developed from the axioms of an $\infty$-cosmos; indeed, most of the work is internal to a strict 2-category of $\infty$-categories, $\infty$-functors, and natural transformations. In the $\infty$-cosmos of quasi-categories, we recapture precisely the same theory developed by Joyal and Lurie, although in most cases our definitions, which are 2-categorical rather than combinatorial in nature, present a new incarnation of the standard concepts. In the first lecture, we define an $\infty$-cosmos and introduce its "homotopy 2-category," using formal category theory to define and study equivalences and adjunctions between $\infty$-categories. In the second lecture, we study (co)limits of diagrams taking values in an $\infty$-category and the relationship between (co)limits and adjunctions. In the third lecture, we introduce comma $\infty$-categories, which are used to encode the universal properties of (co)limits and adjointness and prove "model independence" results. In the fourth lecture, we introduce (co)cartesian fibrations, describe the calculus of "modules" between $\infty$-categories, and use this framework to prove the Yoneda lemma and develop the theory of pointwise Kan extensions of $\infty$-functors.

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arXiv2019

Categorical notions of fibration

Fibrations over a category $B$, introduced to category theory by Grothendieck, encode pseudo-functors $B^{op} \rightsquigarrow {\bf Cat}$, while the special case of discrete fibrations encode presheaves $B^{op} \to {\bf Set}$. A two-sided discrete variation encodes functors $B^{op} \times A \to {\bf Set}$, which are also known as profunctors from $A$ to $B$. By work of Street, all of these fibration notions can be defined internally to an arbitrary 2-category or bicategory. While the two-sided discrete fibrations model profunctors internally to ${\bf Cat}$, unexpectedly, the dual two-sided codiscrete cofibrations are necessary to model $\cal V$-profunctors internally to $\cal V$-$\bf Cat$.

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arXiv2018

The comprehension construction

In this paper we construct an analogue of Lurie's "unstraightening" construction that we refer to as the "comprehension construction". Its input is a cocartesian fibration $p \colon E \to B$ between $\infty$-categories together with a third $\infty$-category $A$. The comprehension construction then defines a map from the quasi-category of functors from $A$ to $B$ to the large quasi-category of cocartesian fibrations over $A$ that acts on $f \colon A \to B$ by forming the pullback of $p$ along $f$. To illustrate the versatility of this construction, we define the covariant and contravariant Yoneda embeddings as special cases of the comprehension functor. We then prove that the hom-wise action of the comprehension functor coincides with an "external action" of the hom-spaces of $B$ on the fibres of $p$ and use this to prove that the Yoneda embedding is fully faithful, providing an explicit equivalence between a quasi-category and the homotopy coherent nerve of a Kan-complex enriched category.

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arXiv2018

Lifting accessible model structures

A Quillen model structure is presented by an interacting pair of weak factorization systems. We prove that in the world of locally presentable categories, any weak factorization system with accessible functorial factorizations can be lifted along either a left or a right adjoint. It follows that accessible model structures on locally presentable categories - ones admitting accessible functorial factorizations, a class that includes all combinatorial model structures but others besides - can be lifted along either a left or a right adjoint if and only if an essential "acyclicity" condition holds. A similar result was claimed in a paper of Hess-Kedziorek-Riehl-Shipley, but the proof given there was incorrect. In this note, we explain this error and give a correction, and also provide a new statement and a different proof of the theorem which is more tractable for homotopy-theoretic applications.

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arXiv2017

Directional derivatives and higher order chain rules for abelian functor calculus

In this paper, we consider abelian functor calculus, the calculus of functors of abelian categories established by the second author and McCarthy. We carefully construct a category of abelian categories and suitably homotopically defined functors, and show that this category, equipped with the directional derivative, is a cartesian differential category in the sense of Blute, Cockett, and Seely. This provides an abstract framework that makes certain analogies between classical and functor calculus explicit. Inspired by Huang, Marcantognini, and Young's chain rule for higher order directional derivatives of functions, we define a higher order directional derivative for functors of abelian categories. We show that our higher order directional derivative is related to the iterated partial directional derivatives of the second author and McCarthy by a Faà di Bruno style formula. We obtain a higher order chain rule for our directional derivatives using a feature of the cartesian differential category structure, and with this provide a formulation for the $n$th layers of the Taylor tower of a composition of functors $F\circ G$ in terms of the derivatives and directional derivatives of $F$ and $G$, reminiscent of similar formulations for functors of spaces or spectra by Arone and Ching. Throughout, we provide explicit chain homotopy equivalences that tighten previously established quasi-isomorphisms for properties of abelian functor calculus.

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arXiv2017

A necessary and sufficient condition for induced model structures

A common technique for producing a new model category structure is to lift the fibrations and weak equivalences of an existing model structure along a right adjoint. Formally dual but technically much harder is to lift the cofibrations and weak equivalences along a left adjoint. For either technique to define a valid model category, there is a well-known necessary "acyclicity" condition. We show that for a broad class of "accessible model structures" - a generalization introduced here of the well-known combinatorial model structures - this necessary condition is also sufficient in both the right-induced and left-induced contexts, and the resulting model category is again accessible. We develop new and old techniques for proving the acyclity condition and apply these observations to construct several new model structures, in particular on categories of differential graded bialgebras, of differential graded comodule algebras, and of comodules over corings in both the differential graded and the spectral setting. We observe moreover that (generalized) Reedy model category structures can also be understood as model categories of "bialgebras" in the sense considered here.

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arXiv2016

Complicial sets, an overture

The aim of these notes is to introduce the intuition motivating the notion of a "complicial set", a simplicial set with certain marked "thin" simplices that witness a composition relation between the simplices on their boundary. By varying the marking conventions, complicial sets can be used to model $(\infty,n)$-categories for each $n \geq 0$, including $n=\infty$. For this reason, complicial sets present a fertile setting for thinking about weak infinite dimensional categories in varying dimensions. This overture is presented in three acts: the first introducing simplicial models of higher categories; the second defining the Street nerve, which embeds strict $ω$-categories as "strict" complicial sets; and the third exploring an important saturation condition on the marked simplices in a complicial set and presenting a variety of model structures that capture their basic homotopy theory. Scattered throughout are suggested exercises for the reader who wants to engage more deeply with these notions.

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arXiv2016

Fibrations and Yoneda's lemma in an $\infty$-cosmos

We use the terms $\infty$-categories and $\infty$-functors to mean the objects and morphisms in an $\infty$-cosmos: a simplicially enriched category satisfying a few axioms, reminiscent of an enriched category of fibrant objects. Quasi-categories, Segal categories, complete Segal spaces, marked simplicial sets, iterated complete Segal spaces, $θ_n$-spaces, and fibered versions of each of these are all $\infty$-categories in this sense. Previous work in this series shows that the basic category theory of $\infty$-categories and $\infty$-functors can be developed only in reference to the axioms of an $\infty$-cosmos; indeed, most of the work is internal to the homotopy 2-category, a strict 2-category of $\infty$-categories, $\infty$-functors, and natural transformations. In the $\infty$-cosmos of quasi-categories, we recapture precisely the same category theory developed by Joyal and Lurie, although our definitions are 2-categorical in natural, making no use of the combinatorial details that differentiate each model. In this paper, we introduce cartesian fibrations, a certain class of $\infty$-functors, and their groupoidal variants. Cartesian fibrations form a cornerstone in the abstract treatment of "category-like" structures a la Street and play an important role in Lurie's work on quasi-categories. After setting up their basic theory, we state and prove the Yoneda lemma, which has the form of an equivalence between the quasi-category of maps out of a representable fibration and the quasi-category underlying the fiber over its representing element. A companion paper will apply these results to establish a calculus of modules between $\infty$-categories, which will be used to define and study pointwise Kan extensions along $\infty$-functors.

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arXiv2016

Kan extensions and the calculus of modules for $\infty$-categories

Various models of $(\infty,1)$-categories, including quasi-categories, complete Segal spaces, Segal categories, and naturally marked simplicial sets can be considered as the objects of an $\infty$-cosmos. In a generic $\infty$-cosmos, whose objects we call $\infty$-categories, we introduce modules (also called profunctors or correspondences) between $\infty$-categories, incarnated as as spans of suitably-defined fibrations with groupoidal fibers. As the name suggests, a module from $A$ to $B$ is an $\infty$-category equipped with a left action of $A$ and a right action of $B$, in a suitable sense. Applying the fibrational form of the Yoneda lemma, we develop a general calculus of modules, proving that they naturally assemble into a multicategory-like structure called a virtual equipment, which is known to be a robust setting in which to develop formal category theory. Using the calculus of modules, it is straightforward to define and study pointwise Kan extensions, which we relate, in the case of cartesian closed $\infty$-cosmoi, to limits and colimits of diagrams valued in an $\infty$-category, as introduced in previous work.

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arXiv2015

Homotopy coherent adjunctions and the formal theory of monads

In this paper, we introduce a cofibrant simplicial category that we call the free homotopy coherent adjunction and characterize its n-arrows using a graphical calculus that we develop here. The hom-spaces are appropriately fibrant, indeed are nerves of categories, which indicates that all of the expected coherence equations in each dimension are present. To justify our terminology, we prove that any adjunction of quasi-categories extends to a homotopy coherent adjunction and furthermore that these extensions are homotopically unique in the sense that the relevant spaces of extensions are contractible Kan complexes. We extract several simplicial functors from the free homotopy coherent adjunction and show that quasi-categories are closed under weighted limits with these weights. These weighted limits are used to define the homotopy coherent monadic adjunction associated to a homotopy coherent monad. We show that each vertex in the quasi-category of algebras for a homotopy coherent monad is a codescent object of a canonical diagram of free algebras. To conclude, we prove the quasi-categorical monadicity theorem, describing conditions under which the canonical comparison functor from a homotopy coherent adjunction to the associated monadic adjunction is an equivalence of quasi-categories. Our proofs reveal that a mild variant of Beck's argument is "all in the weights" - much of it independent of the quasi-categorical context.

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arXiv2015

The 2-category theory of quasi-categories

In this paper we redevelop the foundations of the category theory of quasi-categories (also called infinity-categories) using 2-category theory. We show that Joyal's strict 2-category of quasi-categories admits certain weak 2-limits, among them weak comma objects. We use these comma quasi-categories to encode universal properties relevant to limits, colimits, and adjunctions and prove the expected theorems relating these notions. These universal properties have an alternate form as absolute lifting diagrams in the 2-category, which we show are determined pointwise by the existence of certain initial or terminal vertices, allowing for the easy production of examples. All the quasi-categorical notions introduced here are equivalent to the established ones but our proofs are independent and more "formal". In particular, these results generalise immediately to model categories enriched over quasi-categories.

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arXiv2015

Completeness results for quasi-categories of algebras, homotopy limits, and related general constructions

Consider a diagram of quasi-categories that admit and functors that preserve limits or colimits of a fixed shape. We show that any weighted limit whose weight is a projective cofibrant simplicial functor is again a quasi-category admitting these (co)limits and that they are preserved by the functors in the limit cone. In particular, the Bousfield-Kan homotopy limit of a diagram of quasi-categories admit any limits or colimits existing in and preserved by the functors in that diagram. In previous work, we demonstrated that the quasi-category of algebras for a homotopy coherent monad could be described as a weighted limit with projective cofibrant weight, so these results immediately provide us with important (co)completeness results for quasi-categories of algebras. These generalise most of the classical categorical results, except for a well known theorem which shows that limits lift to the category of algebras for any monad, regardless of whether its functor part preserves those limits. The second half of this paper establishes this more general result in the quasi-categorical setting: showing that the monadic forgetful functor of the quasi-category of algebras for a homotopy coherent monad creates all limits that exist in the base quasi-category, without further assumption on the monad. This proof relies upon a more delicate and explicit analysis of the particular weight used to define quasi-categories of algebras.

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arXiv2014

Homotopical resolutions associated to deformable adjunctions

Given an adjunction connecting reasonable categories with weak equivalences, we define a new derived bar and cobar construction associated to the adjunction. This yields homotopical models of the completion and cocompletion associated to the monad and comonad of the adjunction. We discuss applications of these resolutions to spectral sequences for derived completions and Goodwillie calculus in general model categories.

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arXiv2014

Coalgebraic models for combinatorial model categories

We show that the category of algebraically cofibrant objects in a combinatorial and simplicial model category A has a model structure that is left-induced from that on A. In particular it follows that any presentable model category is Quillen equivalent (via a single Quillen equivalence) to one in which all objects are cofibrant.

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arXiv2014

Six model structures for DG-modules over DGAs: Model category theory in homological action

In Part 1, we describe six projective-type model structures on the category of differential graded modules over a differential graded algebra A over a commutative ring R. When R is a field, the six collapse to three and are well-known, at least to folklore, but in the general case the new relative and mixed model structures offer interesting alternatives to the model structures in common use. The construction of some of these model structures requires two new variants of the small object argument, an enriched and an algebraic one, and we describe these more generally. In Part 2, we present a variety of theoretical and calculational cofibrant approximations in these model categories. The classical bar construction gives cofibrant approximations in the relative model structure, but generally not in the usual one. In the usual model structure, there are two quite different ways to lift cofibrant approximations from the level of homology modules over homology algebras, where they are classical projective resolutions, to the level of DG-modules over DG-algebras. The new theory makes model theoretic sense of earlier explicit calculations based on one of these constructions. A novel phenomenon we encounter is isomorphic cofibrant approximations with different combinatorial structure such that things proven in one avatar are not readily proven in the other.

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arXiv2014

The theory and practice of Reedy categories

The goal of this paper is to demystify the role played by the Reedy category axioms in homotopy theory. With no assumed prerequisites beyond a healthy appetite for category theoretic arguments, we present streamlined proofs of a number of useful technical results, which are well known to folklore but difficult to find in the literature. While the results presented here are not new, our approach to their proofs is somewhat novel. Specifically, we reduce the much of the hard work involved to simpler computations involving weighted colimits and Leibniz (pushout-product) constructions. The general theory is developed in parallel with examples, which we use to prove that familiar formulae for homotopy limits and colimits indeed have the desired properties.

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arXiv2014

Left-induced model structures and diagram categories

We prove existence results a la Jeff Smith for left-induced model category structures, of which the injective model structure on a diagram category is an important example. We further develop the notions of fibrant generation and Postnikov presentation from Hess, which are dual to a weak form of cofibrant generation and cellular presentation. As examples, for k a field and H a differential graded Hopf algebra over k, we produce a left-induced model structure on augmented H-comodule algebras and show that the category of bounded below chain complexes of finite-dimensional k-vector spaces has a Postnikov presentation. To conclude, we investigate the fibrant generation of (generalized) Reedy categories. In passing, we also consider cofibrant generation, cellular presentation, and the small object argument for Reedy diagrams.

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arXiv2013

Monoidal algebraic model structures

Extending previous work, we define monoidal algebraic model structures and give examples. The main structural component is what we call an algebraic Quillen two-variable adjunction; the principal technical work is to develop the category theory necessary to characterize them. Our investigations reveal an important role played by "cellularity" - loosely, the property of a cofibration being a relative cell complex, not simply a retract of such - which we particularly emphasize. A main result is a simple criterion which shows that algebraic Quillen two-variable adjunctions correspond precisely to cell structures on the pushout-products of generating (trivial) cofibrations. As a corollary, we discover that the familiar monoidal model structures on categories and simplicial sets admit this extra algebraic structure.

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