English

On the straightening of every functor

Category Theory 2025-10-14 v3 Algebraic Topology

Abstract

We show that any functor between \infty-categories can be straightened. More precisely, we show that for any \infty-category C\mathcal{C}, there is an equivalence between the \infty-category (Cat)/C(\mathrm{Cat}_{\infty})_{/\mathcal{C}} of \infty-categories over C\mathcal{C} and the \infty-category of unital lax functors from C\mathcal{C} to the double \infty-category Corr\mathrm{Corr} of correspondences. The proof relies on a certain universal property of the Morita category which is of independent interest.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.16539,
  title  = {On the straightening of every functor},
  author = {Thomas Blom},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.16539},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

v3: Made appendix into separate part of paper and added full details for the proof of Theorem B. v2: Added section 8 on comparison to other straightening equivalences, updated references, fixed typos. 28 pages. Comments welcome!