A homotopy colimit theorem for diagrams of braided monoidal categories (Q2429545)

As the authors explain in their introduction, since the Grothendieck construction on a diagram of categories can be extended to the context of bicategories, allowing Thomason's homotopy colimit theorem to be extended to diagrams of bicategories, it is natural to consider further extending these results to tricategories. The authors accomplish a first step towards the realization of such an extension by exhibiting an extension of Thomason's homotopy colimit theorem for diagrams of monoidal categories (considered as special bicategories) to the case of diagrams of braided monoidal categories (which are special tricategories). The result is, as described in the abstract: ``... we show that the homotopy type of the diagram [of monoidal categories] can also be represented by a genuine simplicial set nerve associated with it. This suggests the study of a homotopy colimit theorem, for diagrams \(\mathcal{B}\) of braided monoidal categories, by means of a simplicial set nerve of the diagram. We prove that it is weak homotopy equivalent to the homotopy colimit of the diagram, of simplicial sets, obtained from composing \(\mathcal {B}\) with the geometric nerve functor of braided monoidal categories.'' The article is quite short consisting of preliminaries in Section 2 and the main result in Section 3.