Modular operads and the nerve theorem (Q2189486)

As is well known, a small category admits a nerve, leading to a functor \(\mathbf {Cat} \to \mathbf {sSet}\) to simplicial sets. Various generalisations of categories (e.g., operads) lead to generalisations of the nerve construction, necessitating adjusting the category \(\mathbf {sSet}\) (e.g., to the category \(\mathbf {dSet}\) of dendroidal sets in the case of operads). More general machinery was developed by Weber; given a suitable monad with arities it manufactures a suitable nerve functor and a nerve theorem, loosely refering to an identification of the essential image of the nerve functor. The aim of the article is to establish a nerve theorem for modular operads. Modular operads are a variant of opeards to which the general machinery of Weber cannot be straightforwardly applied. The difficulty lies with the combinatoris of the underlying category of graphs. The authors use the graphical category and study relevant monads for modular operads to establish the main theorem. Note: In [\textit{S. Raynor}, Adv. Math. 392, Article ID 108011, 87 p. (2021; Zbl 1477.18043)] a related approach is taken, establishing the same main theorem, by utilisng distributivity theory for monads.