Magnitude homology of enriched categories and metric spaces (Q2667193)

The first author [Doc. Math. 13, 21--49 (2008; Zbl 1139.18009); \textit{C. Berger} and \textit{T. Leinster}, Homology Homotopy Appl. 10, No. 1, 41--51 (2008; Zbl 1132.18007); Doc. Math. 18, 857--905 (2013; Zbl 1284.51011); \textit{N. Gigli}, Measure theory in non-smooth spaces. Warsaw: De Gruyter Open (2017; Zbl 1388.28001), pp.156--193] introduced the notion of \textit{magnitude} as a numerical invariant of enriched categories, particularly including metric spaces as \(\left[ 0,\infty\right] \)-enriched categories. The principal objective in this paper is to generalize this homology theory to a large class of enriching category \(\boldsymbol{V}\), and in particular to arbitrary metric spaces. Specifically, when \(\boldsymbol{V}\)\ is a \textit{semicartesian} monoidal category (i.e. the monoidal unit is the terminal object) and \(\Sigma :\boldsymbol{V}\rightarrow\boldsymbol{A}\)\ is a strong symmetric monoidal functor to an abelian category, the \textit{magnitude homology} \(H_{\ast }^{\Sigma}\left( X\right) \)\ of any \(\boldsymbol{V}\)-category \(X\)\ is defined, turning out to be no other than the \textit{Hochschild homology} of \(X\)\ with constant coefficients. It is shown that given any rank function \textrm{rk}\(:\mathrm{ob}\left( \boldsymbol{A}\right) \rightarrow k\) with \(k\)\ the multiplicative monoid of a (semi)ring, the composite \textrm{rk} \(\circ\Sigma\)\ is a size \(\#:\mathrm{ob}\left( \boldsymbol{A}\right) \rightarrow k\) and any sufficiently finite \(\boldsymbol{V}\)-category \(X\) is of a magnitude computable as the Euler characteristic of \(H_{\ast}^{\Sigma }\left( X\right) \). If it is unwound in the case of metric spaces, a calculable algebraic invariant with the help of \(\mathbb{R}\)-graded chain complexes is obtained [\textit{Y. Asao} and \textit{K. Izumihara}, Homology Homotopy Appl. 23, No. 1, 297--310 (2020; Zbl 1472.55005); \textit{Y. Asao}, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 21, No. 2, 647--664 (2021; Zbl 1487.53093); \textit{K. Gomi}, Forum Math. 32, No. 3, 625--639 (2020; Zbl 1472.55006); \textit{B. Jubin}, ``On the magnitude homology of metric spaces'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1803.05062}; \textit{R. Kaneta} and \textit{M. Yoshinaga}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 53, No. 3, 893--905 (2021; Zbl 1472.55007)]. It is shown that \(H_{1}^{\Sigma}\left( X\right) =0\) iff \(X\)\ is Menger convex (i.e., for any two distinct points, there is another point strictly between them), which implies in particular that a closed subset \(X\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{n}\) abides by \(H_{1}^{\Sigma}\left( X\right) =0\) iff it is convex in the usual sense.