A Quillen model structure for Gray-categories

A Quillen model structure on the category Gray-Cat of Gray-categories is described, for which the weak equivalences are the triequivalences. It is shown to restrict to the full subcategory Gray-Gpd of Gray-groupoids. This is used to provide a functorial and model-theoretic proof of the unpublished theorem of Joyal and Tierney that Gray-groupoids model homotopy 3-types. The model structure on Gray-Cat is conjectured to be Quillen equivalent to a model structure on the category Tricat of tricategories and strict homomorphisms of tricategories.Comment: v2: fuller discussion of relationship with work of Berger; localizations are done directly with simplicial set

Higher quasi-categories vs higher Rezk spaces

We introduce a notion of n-quasi-categories as fibrant objects of a model category structure on presheaves on Joyal's n-cell category \Theta_n. Our definition comes from an idea of Cisinski and Joyal. However, we show that this idea has to be slightly modified to get a reasonable notion. We construct two Quillen equivalences between the model category of n-quasi-categories and the model category of Rezk \Theta_n-spaces showing that n-quasi-categories are a model for (\infty, n)-categories. For n = 1, we recover the two Quillen equivalences defined by Joyal and Tierney between quasi-categories and complete Segal spaces.Comment: 44 pages, v2: terminology changed (see Remark 5.27), Corollary 7.5 added, appendix A added, references added, v3: reorganization of Sections 5 and 6, more informal comments, new section characterizing strict n-categories whose nerve is an n-quasi-category, numbering has change

Shadows and traces in bicategories

Traces in symmetric monoidal categories are well-known and have many applications; for instance, their functoriality directly implies the Lefschetz fixed point theorem. However, for some applications, such as generalizations of the Lefschetz theorem, one needs "noncommutative" traces, such as the Hattori-Stallings trace for modules over noncommutative rings. In this paper we study a generalization of the symmetric monoidal trace which applies to noncommutative situations; its context is a bicategory equipped with an extra structure called a "shadow." In particular, we prove its functoriality and 2-functoriality, which are essential to its applications in fixed-point theory. Throughout we make use of an appropriate "cylindrical" type of string diagram, which we justify formally in an appendix.Comment: 46 pages; v2: reorganized and shortened, added proof for cylindrical string diagrams; v3: final version, to appear in JHR