Comparing geometric realizations of tricategories (Q740531)

A category \(A\) can be regarded as a simplicial set \(\mathrm{N}A\); that is, as a functor \(\Delta^{\mathrm{op}} \to \mathrm{Set}\) where \(\Delta\) is the simplicial category of non-empty finite ordinals. Functors \(A\to B\) are precisely simplicial morphisms (natural transformations) \(\mathrm{N}A \to \mathrm{N}B\). For reasons recorded by \textit{G. Segal} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 34, 105--112 (1968; Zbl 0199.26404)], \(\mathrm{N}A\) is called the Grothendieck nerve of \(A\). Grothendieck also contemplated nerves of higher-dimensional categories \(A\) and inspired all later approaches. There is a category \(\mathrm{Bicat}\) of bicategories and homomorphisms, which also underlies a tricategory (see \textit{R. Gordon} et al. [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 558, 81 p. (1995; Zbl 0836.18001)]). For a tricategory \(\mathcal{T}\), the present paper studies three different nerves to which they associate the names of Grothendieck, Segal and the reviewer. Their Grothendieck nerve is a trihomomorphism \(\mathrm{N}\mathcal{T} : \Delta^{\mathrm{op}} \to \mathrm{Bicat}\); their Segal nerve is a functor \(\mathrm{S}\mathcal{T} : \Delta^{\mathrm{op}} \to \mathrm{Bicat}\); while their third nerve is a functor \(\Delta\mathcal{T} : \Delta^{\mathrm{op}} \to \mathrm{Set}\). The complexities of these constructions lie in different places allowing the authors to prove a coherence result, a loop space result, and a result on homotopy 3-types using the three constructions respectively. Yet they also show that the three nerves have homotopically equivalent geometric realizations.