Homomorphisms of higher categories (Q984873)

Higher categories can be defined as algebraic structures of a certain kind and so there is a clear notion of homomorphism. Functors between categories are an example. Above dimension one, the notion is too strict which led \textit{J. Bénabou} [``Introduction to bicategories'', Lect. Notes Math. 47, 1--77 (1967; Zbl 0165.33001)] to define homomorphisms between bicategories to be pseudofunctors: they preserve composition of 1-cells up to coherent isomorphism. Under reasonable conditions, \textit{R. Blackwell, G. M. Kelly} and \textit{A. J. Power} [``Two-dimensional monad theory'', J. Pure Appl. Algebra 59, No.~1, 1--41 (1989; Zbl 0675.18006)] proved the existence of a left adjoint to the inclusion of the category of algebras with strict morphisms in the category of algebras with the pseudomorphisms. This enabled them to use strict morphisms to study the `more interesting' ones. The author's idea here is to create a comonad on the category \(\mathcal{HC}at_s\) containing the strict morphisms to obtain the category \(\mathcal{HC}at\) containing the pseudomorphisms by the co-Kleisli construction. The comonad should arise from a weak factorization system on a locally presentable category and its endofunctor should provide a cofibrant replacement for each object. The author uses his construction in ``Understanding the small object argument'' [\textit{R. Garner}, Appl. Categ. Struct. 17, No.~3, 247--285 (2009; Zbl 1173.55009)] to make cofibrant replacement a comonad. The case of tricategories is worked out in detail leading to a different notion from \textit{R. Gordon, A. J. Power} and \textit{R. Street} [``Coherence for tricategories'', Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 558 (1995; Zbl 0836.18001)]. The homomorphisms here are better than the earlier ones in that they compose strictly associatively with identities. Yet they are shown to be still weak enough in an appropriate sense. The fifth and final section applies the process to obtain suitable homomorphisms between weak higher categories in the sense of \textit{M. A. Batanin} [``Monoidal globular categories as a natural environment for the theory of weak \(n\)-categories'', Adv. Math. 136, No.~1, 39--103 (1998; Zbl 0912.18006)]. While Batanin did provide a definition of homomorphism, that concept has not developed further. The merit of the homomorphisms of Garner is that they are morphisms in an ordinary category.