Nerves and cones of free loop-free \(\omega\)-categories (Q6168319)

This paper addresses the compatibility of the complicial nerve of \(\omega\)-categories with two types of cone constructions, which can be understood as specific types of colimit constructions, playing a role in detecting oplax limits and lax colimits of \(\mathcal{D}\)-valued diagrams, respectively. The main result claims that these two cone constructions are compatible with the nerve construction for particular nice \(\omega\)-categories. The precise niceness condition on the \(\omega\)-category \(\mathcal{D}\) is that of being a ``strong Steiner \(\omega\)-category'', which is designed to encode the fact that \(\mathcal{D}\) is freely generated and does not contain any loop. Theorem. If \(\mathcal{D}\) is a suitably free and loop-free \(\omega\)-category, there are equivalences of weak \(\omega\)-categories \[ N\left( \mathcal{D}\ast\left[ 0\right] \right) \simeq N\mathcal{D}\ast N\left[ 0\right] \] and \[ N\left( \left[ 0\right] \ast\mathcal{D}\right) \simeq N\left[ 0\right] \ast N\mathcal{D} \] This theorem is proven in the model of weak \(\omega\)-categories given by complicial sets, which was intensively developed by \textit{D. R. B. Verity} [Adv. Math. 219, No. 4, 1081--1149 (2008; Zbl 1158.18007)], while the nerve is the one introduced by Roberts and further studied by \textit{R. Street} [Lect. Notes Math. 1348, 337--341 (1988; Zbl 0656.18012)] and \textit{D. Verity} [Complicial sets characterising the simplicial nerves of strict \(\omega\)-categories. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2008; Zbl 1138.18005)]. The theorem is valuable on at least two fronts. On the one hand, it is one of the few theorems asserting compatibility of a construction between strict \(\omega\)-categories\ and weak \(\omega\)-categories\ in the form of complicial sets. On the other hand, even when applied to ordinary categories, the theorem is a crucial ingredient to understand whether lax limits of diagrams of \(1\)-categories can be equivalently computed in the \(2\)-category or in the \(\left( \infty,2\right) \)-categories of \(1\)-categories. Even more generally, it helps treat the same question for colimits in an \(n\)-category and colimits computed in the \(\left( \infty,n\right) \)-category given by its nerve. Furthermore, the theorem provides an explicit fibrant replacement of a cone \(\Delta\left[ 0\right] \ast N\mathcal{D}\),