Stacks of Ann-Categories and their morphisms

We show that $\mathit{ann}$-categories admit a presentation by crossed bimodules, and prove that morphisms between them can be expressed by special kinds spans between the presentations. More precisely, we prove the groupoid of morphisms between two $\mathit{ann}$-categories is equivalent to that of bimodule butterflies between the presentations. A bimodule butterfly is a specialization of a butterfly, i.e. a special kind of span or fraction, between the underlying complexesComment: 23 pages. One added section on the class of a stack of ann-categories and Shukla cohomology. One appendix includes an argument courtesy of T. Pirashvili showing the equivalence between Shukla and Andr\'e-Quillen cohomology for associative algebras, when Shukla cohomology is defined via a model structure on DGA

Biextensions, bimonoidal functors, multilinear functor calculus, and categorical rings

We associate to a bimonoidal functor, i.e. a bifunctor which is monoidal in each variable, a nonabelian version of a biextension. We show that such a biextension satisfies additional triviality conditions which make it a bilinear analog of the kind of spans known as butterflies and, conversely, these data determine a bimonoidal functor. We extend this result to $n$-variables, and prove that, in a manner analogous to that of butterflies, these multi-extensions can be composed. This is phrased in terms of a multilinear functor calculus in a bicategory. As an application, we study a bimonoidal category or stack, treating the multiplicative structure as a bimonoidal functor with respect to the additive one. In the context of the multilinear functor calculus, we view the bimonoidal structure as an instance of the general notion of pseudo-monoid. We show that when the structure is ring-like, i.e. the pseudo-monoid is a stack whose fibers are categorical rings, we can recover the classification by the third Mac Lane cohomology of a ring with values in a bimodule.Comment: Accepted version to appear in Theory and Applications of Categories; 61 Pages; the new Appendix E contains the full hypercohomology computation of the characteristic class of a ring-like stac

Rational motivic path spaces and Kim's relative unipotent section conjecture

We initiate a study of path spaces in the nascent context of "motivic dga's", under development in doctoral work by Gabriella Guzman. This enables us to reconstruct the unipotent fundamental group of a pointed scheme from the associated augmented motivic dga, and provides us with a factorization of Kim's relative unipotent section conjecture into several smaller conjectures with a homotopical flavor. Based on a conversation with Joseph Ayoub, we prove that the path spaces of the punctured projective line over a number field are concentrated in degree zero with respect to Levine's t-structure for mixed Tate motives. This constitutes a step in the direction of Kim's conjecture.Comment: Minor corrections, details added, and major improvements to exposition throughout. 52 page