English

CW-complexes in the Category of Small Categories

Category Theory 2017-11-27 v1 Algebraic Topology K-Theory and Homology

Abstract

We compute the collection of CW-complexes in the model category of small categories constructed by Joyal and Tierney. More generally, if XX is a connected topological space, we show that the homotopy category of CW-complexes in Joyal-Tierney's model category of sheaves of sets on XX is equivalent to the homotopy category of groupoids. As an application of the ideas, we show that the algebraic KK-theory groups of the category of pointed small categories are trivial, and more generally, the algebraic KK-theory groups of any sufficiently "nice" Waldhausen category A\mathcal{A} of pointed small categories also vanishes, regardless of finiteness conditions assumed on the objects of A\mathcal{A}. The vanishing of this KK-theory implies that there is no nontrivial Euler characteristic defined on pointed small categories and satisfying certain niceness axioms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.08579,
  title  = {CW-complexes in the Category of Small Categories},
  author = {Christian Frank and Andrew Salch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.08579},
  year   = {2017}
}