Skip to main content
2 of 3
added a comment

The nice answer given by Alexander can be consider as a particular case of the general framework developed in AM16, specifically in its appendix A.

The objects of the parity complex of cubes in $\infty$-$\mathcal{C}at$ can be defined inductively as the tensor products $\Delta_1 \otimes \dots \otimes \Delta_1$ and they are free objects (in the sense of polygraph/computads), see remark A.16. So it is more natural to define at first the general Gray tensor product for $\infty$-$\mathcal{C}at$ and then truncate to get a Gray tensor product in any degree $n$.

Let $\mathcal{C}_{\text{da}}$ be the category of directed augmented complex and $\mathcal{S}t_{\text f}$ its full subcategory of Steiner complexes, see ch. 2 of AM16. There exists a functor $\nu \colon \mathcal{C}_{\text{da}} \to \infty$-$\mathcal{C}at$ which by a theorem of Steiner is fully faithful when restricted to $\mathcal{S}t_{\text f}$, so that we call the objects of the essential (restricted) image Steiner $\infty$-categories (these are all free in the sense of polygraphs). Another result by Steiner ensures that Steiner complexes are closed under tensor product of directed augmented complexes, see proposition A.4. Moreover, the orientals, the cubes and $\Theta$ are Steiner complexes/categories. Theorem A.14 tells us that the Gray tensor product on $\infty$-$\mathcal{C}at$ is precisely the left Kan extension

$$ \require{AMScd} \begin{CD} \Theta \times \Theta @>\nu\times \nu>> \infty\text{-}\mathcal {C}at\times\infty\text{-}\mathcal{C}at\\ @V\otimes VV @VV\otimes_{\text{Gray}} V\\ \mathcal{S}t_f @>>\nu> \infty\text{-}\mathcal{C}at \end{CD}$$

Finally, by lemma A.25 and proposition A.26, we get the 2-categorical Gray tensor product as the following left Kan extension:

$$ \require{AMScd} \begin{CD} \Theta_2 \times \Theta_2 @>\nu\times \nu>> 2\text{-}\mathcal {C}at\times 2\text{-}\mathcal{C}at\\ @V\otimes VV @VV\otimes_{\text{Gray}} V\\ \mathcal{S}t_f @>>\tau^1_{\leqslant 2}\circ \nu> 2\text{-}\mathcal{C}at \end{CD}$$

The role of $\Theta$ and $\Theta_2$ is that they are small dense sub-categories satisfying a bunch of nice properties, see theorem 6.3. Role which can be played by the 2-trucation of the cubes $\mathbf{Cu}$ for the second case of $2\text{-}\mathcal{C}at$. I don't know whether the full subcategory of cubes is dense in $\infty$-$\mathcal{C}at$, though.