Stellar stratifications on classifying spaces

Stratifications in topological manifolds (57N80) General topology of complexes (57Q05) Critical points and critical submanifolds in differential topology (57R70)

Abstract: We extend Bj"orner's characterization of the face poset of finite CW complexes to a certain class of stratified spaces, called cylindrically normal stellar complexes. As a direct consequence, we obtain a discrete analogue of cell decompositions in smooth Morse theory, by using the classifying space model introduced in arXiv:1612.08429. As another application, we show that the exit-path simplicial set

m a t h r m E x i t (X)

of a finite cylindrically normal CW stellar complex

X

is a quasicategory.

Review text

The paper under review studies stratifications on classifying spaces of acyclic topological categories. Using the notation of the authors, let \(C\) be a category, \(C_0\) the objects of \(C\), \(C_1\) the morphisms, and \(C(x,y)\) the morphisms from \(x\) to \(y\). A topological category is called acyclic if 1. For any pair of distinct objects \(x,y\) of \(C\), either \(C(x,y)\) or \(C(y,x)\) is empty. 2. For any object \(x\) of \(C\), \(C(x,x)\) consists only of the identity morphism. 3. Viewing \(C_0\) as the subspace of identity morphisms in \(C_1\), we have \(C_1=C_0\sqcup (C_1\setminus C_0)\). To gain an idea of the uses and applicability of the result contained in the paper, the introduction contains several helpful questions that the contents of the paper answers. One of the main objects the authors use are cylindrically normal stellar stratified spaces (CNSSS), a generalization of a CW complex. The main result is Theorem 1.5. Given an acyclic topological category \(C\) along with some finiteness conditions, ``there exists a CNSSS structure on the classifying space \(BC\) whose face category is isomorphic to \(C\) as topological categories. Several corollaries of this main result follow. One result that I found particularity intriguing, Theorem 1.8, concerns discrete Morse theory. In a recently published paper [\textit{V. Nanda} et al., Adv. Math. 340, 723--790 (2018; Zbl 1405.57034)], it was shown that the homotopy type of a finite regular CW complex \(X\) can be reconstructed from a discrete Morse function \(f\) on \(X\). This result involves constructing a certain category, denoted \(C(f)\), based on the discrete Morse data and then taking the classifying space \(B^2\) of this category. As impressive as this result is, the classifying space can actually be just as complicated as the original \(X\), at least in terms of the number of cells. Theorem 1.8 yields a much nicer cell structure on the classifying space and consequently, on \(X\). A fairly simple corollary of Theorem 1.5, in part the theorem states Theorem 1.5. Let \(f\colon X \to \mathbb{R}\) be a discrete Morse function. Then there exists a CNSSS structure on the classifying space \(B^2C(f)\) such that strata are indexed by the set of critical cells of \(f\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 1411.55001].

Recommendations

Cited in

(8)

This page was built for publication: Stellar stratifications on classifying spaces

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2312917)