Geometric -computads are free geometric n-categories, whose notion of composition is modelled on manifold diagrams. Geometric -computads are a model for a semistrict flavor of n-categories.
We will say a manifold -diagram is a stratum -type if the diagram is of the form . We call the type boundary of .
Let denote the entrance path poset functor, that maps stratified spaces to their entrance path posets.
A geometric -computad is an -graded set together with, for each , a stratum type and a ‘labeling’ function with , such that -strata in have stratum type and factors through by the induced map .
In words, a computad is a bunch of ‘-morphisms’ (indexed by the sets ) for , and each morphism has a stratum type whose boundary is consistently labeled in lower-dimensional morphisms.
The remarkable observation about geometric computads is the following. Classically, building computads is an inductive two-step process: namely, usually one constructs computads inductively by, in the th step, adding generating -morphisms with boundary in existing -morphisms, and then passing to the closure under composition and coherence conditions (which, passing back and forth between “new composites” and “new coherences” is often a pretty infinite process). In geometric computads, this is process becomes unnecessary: boundaries of -morphisms are manifold -diagrams (or, if you work dually, cell -diagrams) which already can express all the composites and isotopies you could possibly need. This makes geometric computads really easy to work with.
While it is straight-forward to define geometric computads (and related notions, such as their functors and certain transformations), a comprehensive theory of computads is still in development.
A definition and further discussion can be found in
The notion has been the topic of several talks and blog posts.
Christoph Dorn, From trusses to geometric computads to combinatorial manifold diagrams (2022)
Christoph Dorn, The categorical Pontryagin-Thom construction (2022) contains definitions of functors and certain transformations of geometric computads.
The finitely generated case can be efficiently manipulated using the proof-assistant homotopy.io
Created on March 14, 2023 at 11:24:24. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.