nLab fundamental category

Idea

For directed spaces

In generalization to how a topological space $X$ has a fundamental groupoid whose morphisms are homotopy-classes of paths in $X$ and whose composition operation is the concatenation of paths, a directed space has a fundamental category whose morphisms are directed paths in $X$.

For stratified spaces

A stratified space has a ‘fundamental $n$-category with duals’, which generalizes the fundamental $n$-groupoid of a plain old space. When a path crosses a codimension-$1$ stratum, “something interesting happens” – i.e., a catastrophe. So, we say such a path gives a noninvertible morphism. The idea is that going along such a path and then going back is not “the same” as having stayed put. So, going back along such a path is not its inverse, just its dual.

See Café discussion and paper it inspired, J. Woolf Transversal homotopy theory.

For simplicial sets

The left adjoint of the nerve functor $N:Cat \to SSet$, which takes a simplicial set to a category, is sometimes called the fundamental category functor. One notation for it is $\tau_1$. Explicitly, for a simplicial set $X$, $\tau_1(X)$ is the category freely generated by the directed graph whose vertices are 0-simplices of $X$ and whose edges are 1-simplices (the source and target are defined by the face maps), modulo the relations $s^0(x) \sim id_x$ for $x \in X_0$ and $d^1(x) \sim d^0(x) \circ d^2(x)$ for $x \in X_2$. Here $s^i$ and $d^i$ denote the degeneracy and face maps, respectively.

If $X$ is a quasicategory, then its fundamental category is equivalent to its homotopy category.

$$\array{ QuasiCat &&\hookrightarrow&& sSet \\ & {}_{\mathllap{Ho}}\searrow && \swarrow_{\mathrlap{\tau_1}} \\ && Cat } \,.$$

Related concepts

• fundamental groupoid, fundamental ∞-groupoid

• fundamental category, fundamental (∞,1)-category

  • equivariant fundamental groupoid

• directed homotopy theory

References

• Marco Grandis, section 3 of:: Directed Algebraic Topology, New Mathematical Monographs 13, Cambridge Univ. Press (2009) [doi:10.1017/CBO9780511657474, pdf]

• Marco Grandis, Directed algebraic topology, categories and higher categories [pdf]

• J. Woolf, Transversal homotopy theory, Theory and applications of categories 24 7 (2010) 148-178 [arXiv:0910.3322]

• J. Woolf, The fundamental category of a stratified space, Journal of Homotopy and Related Structures 4 1 (2009) 359-387 [arXiv:0811.2580]