Long knots and maps between operads (Q441107)

This paper is concerned with understanding the homotopy type of the space of long knots in \(\mathbb R^m\), for \(m \geq 4\), in terms of mapping spaces of certain operads. The main result gives a positive answer to a conjecture of Kontsevich. (A reformulation of this conjecture, as well as a related result, has been given by Lambrechts and Turchin.) A long knot in \(\mathbb R^m\) is a smooth embedding \(\mathbb R \rightarrow \mathbb R^m\) which is given by inclusion into the first coordinate axis outside of a compact set in \(\mathbb R\); the authors additionally assume that such knots be tangentially straightened. The space of all such long knots is known to be the homotopy limit of a certain cosimplicial space as given by Sinha. The construction of this cosimplicial space is defined via an operad map \(\omega\) from the associative operad \(\mathcal A\) to the \(m\)th Kontsevich operad \(\mathcal K_m\), an alternate model for the little \(m\)-disks operad. The authors prove that this homotopy limit is weakly equivalent to the double loop space of the derived space of maps \(\mathcal A \rightarrow \mathcal K_m\), with basepoint \(\omega\). The proof of this result is given by much more general arguments involving bimodules over a monoid object in a monoidal category. A very general theorem proved here gives a fibration sequence of various mapping spaces in this context. The application to long knots arises since, in the category of graded spaces, the monoid objects are precisely the operads. One application of the general theorem gives that the (single) loop space of the derived mapping space of interest is equivalent to a derived mapping space between the same operads but in the category of bimodules over the associative operad. A second application of the general theorem gives an equivalence of the loop space of this second derived mapping space with a third derived mapping space which turns out to live in the category of cosimplicial spaces.