The Stacks project

Lemma 14.17.4. Assume the category $\mathcal{C}$ has coproducts of any two objects and finite limits. Let $U$ be a simplicial set, with $U_ n$ finite nonempty for all $n \geq 0$. Assume that all $n$-simplices of $U$ are degenerate for all $n \gg 0$. Let $V$ be a simplicial object of $\mathcal{C}$. Then $\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)$ exists, moreover we have the expected equalities

\[ \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ n = \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U \times \Delta [n], V)_0. \]

Proof. We construct this simplicial object as follows. For $n \geq 0$ let $\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ n$ denote the object of $\mathcal{C}$ representing the functor

\[ X \longmapsto \mathop{\mathrm{Mor}}\nolimits _{\text{Simp}(\mathcal{C})}(X \times U \times \Delta [n], V) \]

This exists by Lemma 14.17.3 because $U \times \Delta [n]$ is a simplicial set with finite sets of simplices and no nondegenerate simplices in high enough degree, see Lemma 14.11.5. For $\varphi : [m] \to [n]$ we obtain an induced map of simplicial sets $\varphi : \Delta [m] \to \Delta [n]$. Hence we obtain a morphism $X \times U \times \Delta [m] \to X \times U \times \Delta [n]$ functorial in $X$, and hence a transformation of functors, which in turn gives

\[ \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)(\varphi ) : \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ n \longrightarrow \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ m. \]

Clearly this defines a contravariant functor $\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)$ from $\Delta $ into the category $\mathcal{C}$. In other words, we have a simplicial object of $\mathcal{C}$.

We have to show that $\mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)$ satisfies the desired universal property

\[ \mathop{\mathrm{Mor}}\nolimits _{\text{Simp}(\mathcal{C})}(W, \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)) = \mathop{\mathrm{Mor}}\nolimits _{\text{Simp}(\mathcal{C})}(W \times U, V) \]

To see this, let $f : W \to \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)$ be given. We want to construct the element $f' : W \times U \to V$ of the right hand side. By construction, each $f_ n : W_ n \to \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ n$ corresponds to a morphism $f_ n : W_ n \times U \times \Delta [n] \to V$. Further, for every morphism $\varphi : [m] \to [n]$ the diagram

\[ \xymatrix{ W_ n \times U \times \Delta [m] \ar[rr]_{W(\varphi )\times \text{id} \times \text{id}} \ar[d]_{\text{id} \times \text{id} \times \varphi } & & W_ m \times U \times \Delta [m] \ar[d]^{f_ m} \\ W_ n \times U \times \Delta [n] \ar[rr]^{f_ n} & & V } \]

is commutative. For $\psi : [n] \to [k]$ in $(\Delta [n])_ k$ we denote $(f_ n)_{k, \psi } : W_ n \times U_ k \to V_ k$ the component of $(f_ n)_ k$ corresponding to the element $\psi $. We define $f'_ n : W_ n \times U_ n \to V_ n$ as $f'_ n = (f_ n)_{n, \text{id}}$, in other words, as the restriction of $(f_ n)_ n : W_ n \times U_ n \times (\Delta [n])_ n \to V_ n$ to $W_ n \times U_ n \times \text{id}_{[n]}$. To see that the collection $(f'_ n)$ defines a morphism of simplicial objects, we have to show for any $\varphi : [m] \to [n]$ that $V(\varphi ) \circ f'_ n = f'_ m \circ W(\varphi ) \times U(\varphi )$. The commutative diagram above says that $(f_ n)_{m, \varphi } : W_ n \times U_ m \to V_ m$ is equal to $(f_ m)_{m, \text{id}} \circ W(\varphi ) : W_ n \times U_ m \to V_ m$. But then the fact that $f_ n$ is a morphism of simplicial objects implies that the diagram

\[ \xymatrix{ W_ n \times U_ n \times (\Delta [n])_ n \ar[r]_-{(f_ n)_ n} \ar[d]_{\text{id} \times U(\varphi ) \times \varphi } & V_ n \ar[d]^{V(\varphi )} \\ W_ n \times U_ m \times (\Delta [n])_ m \ar[r]^-{(f_ n)_ m} & V_ m } \]

is commutative. And this implies that $(f_ n)_{m, \varphi } \circ U(\varphi )$ is equal to $V(\varphi ) \circ (f_ n)_{n, \text{id}}$. Altogether we obtain $ V(\varphi ) \circ (f_ n)_{n, \text{id}} = (f_ n)_{m, \varphi } \circ U(\varphi ) = (f_ m)_{m, \text{id}} \circ W(\varphi )\circ U(\varphi ) = (f_ m)_{m, \text{id}} \circ W(\varphi )\times U(\varphi ) $ as desired.

On the other hand, given a morphism $f' : W \times U \to V$ we define a morphism $f : W \to \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)$ as follows. By Lemma 14.13.4 the morphisms $\text{id} : W_ n \to W_ n$ corresponds to a unique morphism $c_ n : W_ n \times \Delta [n] \to W$. Hence we can consider the composition

\[ W_ n \times \Delta [n] \times U \xrightarrow {c_ n} W \times U \xrightarrow {f'} V. \]

By construction this corresponds to a unique morphism $f_ n : W_ n \to \mathop{\mathrm{Hom}}\nolimits (U, V)_ n$. We leave it to the reader to see that these define a morphism of simplicial sets as desired.

We also leave it to the reader to see that $f \mapsto f'$ and $f' \mapsto f$ are mutually inverse operations. $\square$


Comments (0)


Post a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked.

In your comment you can use Markdown and LaTeX style mathematics (enclose it like $\pi$). A preview option is available if you wish to see how it works out (just click on the eye in the toolbar).

Unfortunately JavaScript is disabled in your browser, so the comment preview function will not work.

All contributions are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.




In order to prevent bots from posting comments, we would like you to prove that you are human. You can do this by filling in the name of the current tag in the following input field. As a reminder, this is tag 017L. Beware of the difference between the letter 'O' and the digit '0'.