Polyfolds: A First and Second Look

Polyfold theory was developed by Hofer-Wysocki-Zehnder by finding commonalities in the analytic framework for a variety of geometric elliptic PDEs, in particular moduli spaces of pseudoholomorphic curves. It aims to systematically address the common difficulties of compactification and transversality with a new notion of smoothness on Banach spaces, new local models for differential geometry, and a nonlinear Fredholm theory in the new context. We shine meta-mathematical light on the bigger picture and core ideas of this theory. In addition, we compiled and condensed the core definitions and theorems of polyfold theory into a streamlined exposition, and outline their application at the example of Morse theory.Comment: 62 pages, 2 figures. Example 2.1.3 has been modified. Final version, to appear in the EMS Surv. Math. Sc

A type theory for synthetic ∞\infty-categories

We propose foundations for a synthetic theory of $(\infty,1)$-categories within homotopy type theory. We axiomatize a directed interval type, then define higher simplices from it and use them to probe the internal categorical structures of arbitrary types. We define Segal types, in which binary composites exist uniquely up to homotopy; this automatically ensures composition is coherently associative and unital at all dimensions. We define Rezk types, in which the categorical isomorphisms are additionally equivalent to the type-theoretic identities - a "local univalence" condition. And we define covariant fibrations, which are type families varying functorially over a Segal type, and prove a "dependent Yoneda lemma" that can be viewed as a directed form of the usual elimination rule for identity types. We conclude by studying homotopically correct adjunctions between Segal types, and showing that for a functor between Rezk types to have an adjoint is a mere proposition. To make the bookkeeping in such proofs manageable, we use a three-layered type theory with shapes, whose contexts are extended by polytopes within directed cubes, which can be abstracted over using "extension types" that generalize the path-types of cubical type theory. In an appendix, we describe the motivating semantics in the Reedy model structure on bisimplicial sets, in which our Segal and Rezk types correspond to Segal spaces and complete Segal spaces.Comment: 78 pages; v2 has minor updates inspired by discussions at the Mathematics Research Community on Homotopy Type Theory; v3 incorporates many expository improvements suggested by the referee; v4 is the final journal version to appear in Higher Structures with a more precise syntax for our type theory with shape

Computational Problems in Metric Fixed Point Theory and their Weihrauch Degrees

We study the computational difficulty of the problem of finding fixed points of nonexpansive mappings in uniformly convex Banach spaces. We show that the fixed point sets of computable nonexpansive self-maps of a nonempty, computably weakly closed, convex and bounded subset of a computable real Hilbert space are precisely the nonempty, co-r.e. weakly closed, convex subsets of the domain. A uniform version of this result allows us to determine the Weihrauch degree of the Browder-Goehde-Kirk theorem in computable real Hilbert space: it is equivalent to a closed choice principle, which receives as input a closed, convex and bounded set via negative information in the weak topology and outputs a point in the set, represented in the strong topology. While in finite dimensional uniformly convex Banach spaces, computable nonexpansive mappings always have computable fixed points, on the unit ball in infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert space the Browder-Goehde-Kirk theorem becomes Weihrauch-equivalent to the limit operator, and on the Hilbert cube it is equivalent to Weak Koenig's Lemma. In particular, computable nonexpansive mappings may not have any computable fixed points in infinite dimension. We also study the computational difficulty of the problem of finding rates of convergence for a large class of fixed point iterations, which generalise both Halpern- and Mann-iterations, and prove that the problem of finding rates of convergence already on the unit interval is equivalent to the limit operator.Comment: 44 page

Cohomology at infinity and the well-rounded retract for general Linear Groups

Let $\bold G$ be a reductive algebraic group defined over \Q, and let $\Gamma$ be an arithmetic subgroup of \bold G(\Q). Let $X$ be the symmetric space for $\bold G(\R)$, and assume $X$ is contractible. Then the cohomology (mod torsion) of the space $X/\Gamma$ is the same as the cohomology of $\Gamma$. In turn, $X/\Gamma$ will have the same cohomology as $W/\Gamma$, if $W$ is a ``spine'' in $X$. This means that $W$ (if it exists) is a deformation retract of $X$ by a $\Gamma$-equivariant deformation retraction, that $W/\Gamma$ is compact, and that $\dim W$ equals the virtual cohomological dimension (vcd) of $\Gamma$. Then $W$ can be given the structure of a cell complex on which $\Gamma$ acts cellularly, and the cohomology of $W/\Gamma$ can be found combinatorially