ABSTRACT. ABSOLUTE LAX 2-CATEGORIES.pdfVIP

ABSOLUTE LAX 2-CATEGORIES MARCO GRANDIS ABSTRACT. We have introduced, in a previous paper, the fundamental lax 2-category of a ‘directed space’ X. Here we show that, when X has a T1-topology, this structure can be embedded into a larger one, with the same objects (the points of X), the same arrows (the directed paths) and the same cells (based on directed homotopies of paths), but a larger system of comparison cells. The new comparison cells are absolute, in the sense that they only depend on the arrows themselves rather than on their syntactic expression, as in the usual settings of lax or weak structures. It follows that, in the original structure, all the diagrams of comparison cells commute, even if not constructed in a natural way and even if the composed cells need not stay within the old system. Introduction The purpose of this paper is solving a problem which appeared in a previous one [13]: can one define, for a directed space (see below), a fundamental absolute lax 2-category, with absolute comparisons, not depending on the syntactic expression of the arrows to be compared? The paper [13] will be cited as Part I; the reference I.2, or I.2.3, or I.2.3.4 applies to its Section 2, or its Subsection 2.3, or item (4) in the latter, respectively. The problem can be better explained recalling the main structures in two dimensional category theory, as they have appeared in the literature: (a) the structure of monoidal category, whose axioms are motivated by Mac Lane’s co- herence theorem for comparison cells ([16], 1963) and Kelly’s reduction to two conditions ([14], 1964); (b) the structure of (strict) 2-category (Be?nabou [2], C. Ehresmann [7], 1965); (c) its weak version, a bicategory (Be?nabou [3], 1967), where the unit and associativity laws of arrow-composition are replaced with invertible comparison cells, like f ～= f ?1x, (h?g)?f ～= h?(g?f) (and monoidal categories are included as bicategories with one object); (d) a first lax version, Burroni’s pseudocate