Calculus of functors and model categories (Q2642044)

The projective model structure on the category of small covariant functors from simplicial sets to simplicial sets was constructed in [\textit{B. Chorny} and \textit{W. G. Dwyer}, Homotopy theory of small diagrams over large categories, Forum Math., to appear]. In this paper, after an introduction and some preliminaries (sections 1 and 2), the authors give various localizations of this projective model structure (sections 3 and 4). In section 5 they establish a variant for small functors from (pointed) spaces to spectra. In the last four sections, these model categories are applied to the classification of polynomial and homogeneous functors, and also to improve the classification of finitary homogeneous functors by \textit{T. G. Goodwillie} [Geom. Topol. 7, 645--711 (2003; Zbl 1067.55006)]