A unified view on the functorial nerve theorem and its variations (Q6149188)

In this paper, the authors present together several different functional nerve theorems under various assumptions. The nerve theorem is a fundamental part of the algebraic topology tool box. It plays a very important part in computational and applied algebraic topology. In particular, in topological data analysis, practitioners regularly require an appropriate functorial nerve theorem, and often such a theorem in proven in a specific context. This paper presents several versions of the nerve theorem, and unifies them into a theorem which implies several of these variants. Due to the functorial nature of these theorems, the authors present the necessary category theory to prove the theorems, as well as the unified version. Beginning with `nerve theorems for covers by closed convex sets in Euclidean spaces', which they prove using fundamental techniques. After this, they prove nerve theorems for `covers of simplicial complexes by subcomplexes', before finally presenting a `unified nerve theorem', which absorbs many versions of the nerve theorem. To prove this unified nerve theorem, they use techniques from abstract homotopy theory, in particular model categories.