Homotopy composition of cospans
Category Theory
2021-03-31 v2 Logic in Computer Science
Algebraic Topology
Quantum Physics
Abstract
It is well known that the category of finite sets and cospans, composed by pushout, contains the universal {\em special} commutative Frobenius algebra. In this note we observe that the same construction yields also general commutative Frobenius algebras, if just the pushouts are changed to homotopy pushouts.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1602.08739,
title = {Homotopy composition of cospans},
author = {Joachim Kock and David I. Spivak},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.08739},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
4 pages. In this version: A more direct introduction and a additional few details on the tubular neighborhood argument. Final version, to appear in Commun. Contemp. Math