Pair component categories for directed spaces (Q2304019)

A directed space (d-space for short), as defined by \textit{M. Grandis} [Cah. Topol. Géom. Différ. Catég. 44, No. 4, 281--316 (2003; Zbl 1059.55009)] is a topological space, \(X\), together with a subset of the space of all paths on it, that satisfies some reasonable properties so as to include direction preserving paths in a space with a nice order on it. The elements of such are said to be directed paths. Such directed spaces have been applied to modelling non-reversible situations such as occur in the study of concurrent and distributed computing. To study such settings, various analogues of the fundamental groupoid construction have been proposed for d-spaces, but, for the applications, certain hoped for behaviour has been hard to achieve, with various often quite simply defined examples acting as a test bed for the evaluation of the attempted constructions. In this paper, the author constructs a `pair component category' as a quotient, via a natural action of a certain monoid of `inessential maps', of a category of reachable pairs of points. The pair component category has as objects pair components along which the homotopy type of the path space between the points does not change. This builds on and refines work by \textit{L. Fajstrup} et al. [Appl. Categ. Struct. 12, No. 1, 81--108 (2004; Zbl 1078.55020)] and more recently by subsets of that list of authors. It removes some of the restrictions on the applicability of those earlier results. An evaluation and comparison of some of the various variants is given, and a discussion of directions for future work is included.