diff -r 6a7f2a6295d1 -r 9c09495197c0 pnas/pnas.tex --- a/pnas/pnas.tex Wed Nov 17 11:16:27 2010 -0800 +++ b/pnas/pnas.tex Wed Nov 17 11:26:00 2010 -0800 @@ -194,29 +194,33 @@ (The WRT invariants need to be reinterpreted as $3{+}1$-dimensional theories with only a weak dependence on interiors in order to be extended all the way down to dimension 0.) -For other TQFT-like invariants, however, the above framework seems to be inadequate. - -\nn{kevin's rewrite stops here} +For other non-semisimple TQFT-like invariants, however, the above framework seems to be inadequate. +For example, the gluing rule for 3-manifolds in Ozsv\'{a}th-Szab\'{o}/Seiberg-Witten theory +involves a tensor product over an $A_\infty$ 1-category associated to 2-manifolds \cite{1003.0598,1005.1248}. +Long exact sequences are important computational tools in these theories, +and also in Khovanov homology, but the colimit construction breaks exactness. +For these reasons and others, it is desirable to +extend to above framework to incorporate ideas from derived categories. -However new invariants on manifolds, particularly those coming from -Seiberg-Witten theory and Ozsv\'{a}th-Szab\'{o} theory, do not fit the framework well. -In particular, they have more complicated gluing formulas, involving derived or -$A_\infty$ tensor products \cite{1003.0598,1005.1248}. -It seems worthwhile to find a more general notion of TQFT that explain these. -While we don't claim to fulfill that goal here, our notions of $n$-category and -of the blob complex are hopefully a step in the right direction, -and provide similar gluing formulas. - -One approach to such a generalization might be simply to define a -TQFT invariant via its gluing formulas, replacing tensor products with -derived tensor products. However, it is probably difficult to prove +One approach to such a generalization might be to simply define a +TQFT via its gluing formulas, replacing tensor products with +derived tensor products. +\nn{maybe cite Kh's paper on links in $S^1\times S^2$} +However, it is probably difficult to prove the invariance of such a definition, as the object associated to a manifold will a priori depend on the explicit presentation used to apply the gluing formulas. We instead give a manifestly invariant construction, and -deduce gluing formulas based on $A_\infty$ tensor products. +deduce from it the gluing formulas based on $A_\infty$ tensor products. -\nn{Triangulated categories are important; often calculations are via exact sequences, -and the standard TQFT constructions are quotients, which destroy exactness.} +This paper is organized as follows. +We first give an account of our version of $n$-categories. +According to our definition, $n$-categories are, among other things, +functorial invariants of $k$-balls, $0\le k \le n$, which behave well with respect to gluing. +We then describe how to use [homotopy] colimits to extend $n$-categories +from balls to arbitrary $k$-manifolds. +This extension is the desired derived version of a TQFT, which we call the blob complex. +(The name comes from the ``blobs" which feature prominently +in a concrete version of the homotopy colimit.) \nn{In many places we omit details; they can be found in MW. (Blanket statement in order to avoid too many citations to MW.)}