$(\infty,1)$-categories and model categories - MathOverflow

$(\infty,1)$-categories and model categories

2010-02-23T20:14:45Z

I read several times that $(\infty,1)$-categories (weak Kan complexes, special simplicial sets) are a generalization of the concept of model categories. What does this mean? Can one associate an $(\infty,1)$-category to a model category without losing the information on the co/fibrations? How? Why is the $(\infty,1)$-category viewpoint the better one?

$(\infty,1)$-categories are equivalent to simplicial categories (categories enriched over simplicial sets). This is outlined in Lurie's higher topoi. A simplicial model category is in particular a simplicial category. Is this the way the association works? Every model category is Quillen equivalent to a simplicial model category and can thus be enriched over simplicial sets.

It would be nice if somebody could help me to clarify this.

Edit: Thank you all for the answers. It seems to me that $(\infty,1)$ -categories are not a generalization of the concept of model categories. A model category is more than a category $C$ together with a class of maps $W$ such that $C[W^{-1}]$ is a category. A model structure data on a category $C$ contains the information on what a cofibration and what a fibration is. This is important for the structure. There exist different model structures with the same homotopy category as for example model structures on functor categories.

This means that if there is a kind of functor $$ F: {\mbox{model categories}} \to {\mbox{($\infty,1)$-categories}} $$ it is at least not an embedding. In spite of the answers, I still don't see how this functor (if it is really a functor) works. Where is a model category mapped to?

Answer by Tyler Lawson for $(\infty,1)$-categories and model categories

2010-02-23T22:53:04Z

You have the basic sense correct. In a model category any pair of objects has a function space of maps between them. However, it is possible to define this function space in far more generality.

Given a category C with a subcategory W < C with the same objects, consisting of a collection of maps that one wants to make into isomorphisms, Dwyer and Kan defined under certain circumstances a "simplicial localization" of C which is a functor from C to a category LC enriched in simplicial sets. If C has a model category structure, then this recovers the spaces of maps that you describe as coming from the model category structure.

The model category could then be viewed as a tool to recover the mapping spaces and the associated $(\infty,1)$-category in a more constructive manner, as the category LC is generally quite large.

Answer by Reid Barton for $(\infty,1)$-categories and model categories

2010-02-23T23:08:51Z

Mostly I refer you to my answer here and also this question.

To answer the question about (co)fibrations: No, there is no notion corresponding to (co)fibration in the (∞,1)-category associated to a model category. After all, being a (co)fibration has no homotopical information: every map is equivalent to a (co)fibration. For the sorts of things you need the (co)fibrations to define in model categories, such as homotopy (co)limits, you can give direct definitions in terms of mapping spaces in the (∞,1)-category.

There are two sensible notions of "sameness" of model categories: categorical equivalence, by which I mean an equivalence of categories which preserves each of the three classes of arrows, and Quillen equivalence. This is a lot like the difference between two objects in a model category being isomorphic or merely weakly equivalent, though I don't think anyone has a framework in which to make this idea precise. When you consider, say, the projective and injective model structures on a diagram category, these model structures are Quillen equivalent but not categorically equivalent. They have different 1-categorical properties (it's easy to describe left Qullen functors out of the projective model structure and left Quillen functors into the injective model structure) but they model the same homotopy theory. The passage to associated (∞,1)-categories eliminates the distinction between categorical equivalence and Quillen equivalence: two model categories are Quillen equivalent if and only if their associated (∞,1)-categories are equivalent. (Actually, I am not sure whether there are some technical conditions needed for the last assertion, but if so they are satisfied in practice.)