Towers and fibered products of model structures (Q346848)

Modern homotopy theory has made expansive use of localization techniques in its study of spaces and spectra. Of course, unabashed by abstraction, homotopy theorists are wont to ask: can these techniques be applied to the study of ``homotopy theories'' themselves? This ``homotopy theory of homotopy theories'' has been investigated with inquiries into homotopy limits of diagrams of model structures, among other things, see [\textit{J. E. Bergner}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 44, No. 2, 311--322 (2012; Zbl 1242.55006)]. In the work under consideration, the authors use these ideas to offer category theoretic versions of some classical localization results related to Postnikov towers of spaces, chromatic towers of spectra, and Bousfield arithmetic squares of spectra, as well as insights into the relationship between left and right Bousfield localizations. Given a diagram of sufficiently well-behaved model categories, the authors recall the injective model structure on the sections of the diagram. This category is then subject to a right Bousfield localization to obtain the homotopy limit model structure. As the title suggests, the focus here is on homotopy limits of towers of model structures and homotopy pullbacks of model structures. The homotopy limit of a tower of model structures is used to investigate Postnikov sections of model structures and chromatic towers of left Bousfield localizations, with consideration given to convergence results related to said towers. The authors remark that exploring these ideas in reference to the Taylor towers of Goodwillie calculus could prove interesting. The homotopy pullback of model structures is then used to study Bousfield arithmetic squares of homological localizations. The special case of homotopy fibers of model structures is used to investigate the homotopy fiber of left Bousfield localizations. In particular, certain right Bousfield localizations are recognized as Quillen equivalent to the homotopy fiber of a left Bousfield localization. This is used show that the model structure of \(k\)-connective covers is Quillen equivalent to the homotopy fiber of the left Bousfield localization used to produce the model structure of \(k\)-types. Nullifications and cellularizations of the category of spectra are discussed briefly in regards to related localized and colocalized model structures. Finally, for stable model categories, the authors realize a stable right Bousfield localization as Quillen equivalent to the homotopy fiber of a stable left Bousfield localization.