Videos

Goodwillie's calculus of functors

Presenter
January 27, 2014
Keywords:
  • homotopy functor
  • polynomial functor
  • n-excisive functor
  • manifold calculus
  • manifold functor calculus
  • derivatives of functors
  • Taylor tower
MSC:
  • 55P65
  • 55P43
  • 55P40
  • 46M15
  • 18A99
  • 18-xx
Abstract
The calculus of homotopy functors provides a systematic way to approximate a given functor (say from based spaces to spectra) by so-called `polynomial' functors. Each functor F that preserves weak equivalences has a `Taylor tower' (analogous to the Taylor series of ordinary calculus) which in turn is built from homogeneous pieces that are classified by certain `derivatives' for F. I will review this material and consider the problem of how the Taylor tower of F can be reconstructed from its derivatives. We will discuss some important examples built from mapping spaces. Then. if time permits, I will us this approach to give a classification of analytic functors from based spaces to spectra and try to describe some connections to the Goodwillie-Weiss manifold calculus.
Supplementary Materials