Symmetric cubical sets (Q531321)

There are several well known combinatorial models for homotopy theory; simplicial sets are one, but although cubical sets do work, the ordinary definitions have some problems and the way to get around these has only recently been given by Cisiski and Maltsiniotis. The classically defined cubical sets are given as presheaves on the `box' category, \(\mathcal{Q}\), having as objects the posets \(\{0<1\}^n\). In this paper, a new category, denoted \(\mathcal{Q}_\Sigma\), of basic cubes, but with additional maps between them is introduced. This contains \(\mathcal{Q}\) as a subcategory, but is a symmetric monoidal category (in fact a \({\mathcal P}rop\)). An elementary description of it in terms of generators and relations is given. The corresponding presheaf category models the homotopy category and combinatorial, symmetric monoidal model categories with cofibrant units have homotopically well behaved enrichments over this category.