Cubical rigidification, the cobar construction and the based loop space (Q1713041)

Let \(\mathfrak{C}\) denote Lurie's rigidification functor, that associates to a simplicial set a category enriched over simplicial sets. The authors factorise this functor through another functor \(\mathfrak{C}_{\square_c}\) which sends simplicial sets to categories enriched over cubical sets with connections. By taking normalised cubical chains there results a functor \(\Lambda\) mapping simplicial sets to dg categories. This functor is left adjoint to Lurie's dg nerve functor. If \(S\) is a simplicial set with a unique 0-simplex \(x\) then \(\Lambda(S)(x,x)\) is isomorphic, as a dga, to the cobar construction on the dg coalgebra of normalised simplicial chains with the Alexander-Whitney coproduct. The machinery is used to prove the following result. Let \(X\) be a path connected space with distinguished base point \(b\), and let \(S\) denote the simplicial set of singular simplices with vertices at \(b\). The cobar construction of the normalised simplicial chains of \(S\) is weakly equivalent, as a dga, to the singular chains of the topological monoid of Moore loops in \(X\) based at \(b\). This generalises a result of Adams which applied to simply connected spaces only.