mathematics Article Cohomology of Homotopy Colimits of Simplicial Sets and Small Categories Antonio M. Cegarra Department Algebra, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain;
[email protected] Received: 27 May 2020; Accepted: 12 June 2020; Published: 16 June 2020 Abstract: This paper deals with well-known weak homotopy equivalences that relate homotopy colimits of small categories and simplicial sets. We show that these weak homotopy equivalences have stronger cohomology-preserving properties than for local coefficients. Keywords: homotopy colimits; cohomology of simplicial sets; cohomology of small categories MSC: 18G30; 18G60; 55U10; 55U35 1. Introduction Since the 1980 paper by Thomason [1], we know that the categories SSet, of simplicial sets, and Cat, of small categories, are equivalent from a homotopical point of view. Indeed, there are several basic functorial constructions by which one can pass freely between these categories, preserving all the homotopy invariants of their objects and morphisms. For instance, we have the functor N : Cat ! SSet which assigns to each small category C its nerve N(C), and the functor D : SSet ! Cat sending each simplicial set X to its category of simplices D(X). Nevertheless, there are interesting algebraic constructions, both on simplicial sets and on small categories, that are not invariants of their homotopy type. This is the case for Gabriel–Zisman cohomology groups Hn(X, A) ([2] Appendix II), of simplicial sets X with arbitrary coefficient systems on them, that is, with coefficients in abelian group valued functors A : D(X) ! Ab. Recall from Quillen ([3] II §3, Prop. 4) that a simplicial map f : Y ! X is a weak homotopy equivalence if and only if it induces an equivalence of fundamental groupoids P(X) ' P(Y), as well isomorphisms Hn(X, A) =∼ Hn(Y, f ∗ A), for all n ≥ 0, whenever A is a local coefficient system on X, that is, whenever A is a morphism-inverting functor or, equivalently, if A : P(X) ! Ab is actually an abelian group valued functor on the fundamental groupoid of X.