Manifold calculus adapted for simplicial complexes (Q1625454)

The purpose of this paper is to generalize the Goodwillie-Weiss manifold calculus to the setting of simplicial complexes. Let \(K\) be a simplicial complex and let \({\mathcal{O}}={\mathcal{O}}(K)\) be the category of open subsets of \(K\) with inclusions. Let \(F:{\mathcal{O}}\to \text{Top}\) be a suitably nice contravariant functor. For \(k\geq 0\), the author defines the \(k\)-th Taylor approximation \(T_kF: {\mathcal{O}}\to \text{Top}\) of \(F\) by \[ T_kF(V)\mathrel{:}= \text{holim}F(U), \] where the homotopy limit is taken over a certain full subcategory of \({\mathcal{O}}(V)\). If \(F\) is \(k\)-polynomial, then the canonical map \(F(V)\to T_kF(V)\) is a weak equivalence. The author also shows that if \(F\) is a \(\rho\)-analytic functor with \(\rho>\dim K\), then the canonical map \[ F(V)\to T_\infty F(V)=\text{holim}_kT_kF(V) \] is a weak equivalence for every \(V\in {\mathcal{O}}\). The results are applied to study embeddings and immersions of a simplicial complex into a smooth manifold.