Homotopic distance between functors (Q2228315)

The homotopic distance between maps is a topological/homotopical notion recently introduced by the authors [``Homotopic distance between maps'', Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 1--21 (2021; \url{doi:10.1017/S0305004121000116}) or \url{arXiv:1810.12591}]. Namely, given continuous maps \(f,g:X\rightarrow Y\), they define the homotopic distance \(D(f,g)\) as the least non negative integer \(n\) such that there exists an open cover \(\{U_0, \dots, U_n\}\) of \(X\) such that the restrictions \(f\vert_{U_j}\simeq g\vert_{U_j}\) are homotopic maps, for all \(j\in \{0,1,\dots,n\}.\) In addition to having interesting properties on its own, several properties of L.-S. category and topological complexity can be proven in a unified manner by means of homotopic distance. This is because homotopic distance turns out to be a generalization to both Lusternik-Schnirelmann category and topological complexity of a space. In the paper under review the authors adapt their notion of homotopic distance in the setting of functors between small categories. This adapted notion is proved to be a generalization of Tanaka's categorical L.S. category [\textit{K. Tanaka}, Topology Appl. 239, 65--80 (2018; Zbl 1395.55006)]. Moreover, it allows the authors to introduce the new notion of topological complexity of a small category. Several properties of categorical homotopic distance are given. Among them we can mention its homotopical invariance and its behavior with respect to the composition or product of functors. Some other properties are also discussed, such as the relationship between categorical and homotopical distance by means of the classifying space functor \(B:\mathbf{Cat}\rightarrow \mathbf{Top}.\) Finally, the authors also discuss some relationships when considering finite posets, taking into account that these objets can be seen as both finite topological spaces and small categories. As finite posets are related with simplicial complexes (through the order complex and McCord functors) their results allow the authors to consider a notion of contiguity distance, which turns out to be a generalization of the existing simplicial notions of LS-category and topological complexity, see [\textit{D. Fernández-Ternero} et al., Publ. Mat., Barc. 63, No. 1, 265--293 (2019; Zbl 1416.55003); Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 146, No. 10, 4535--4548 (2018; Zbl 1402.55007); Topology Appl. 194, 37--50 (2015; Zbl 1327.55004)].