A bicategory of reduced orbifolds from the point of view of differential geometry - I

Abstract

We describe a bicategory $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{O}rb)$ of reduced orbifolds in the framework of classical differential geometry (i.e. without any explicit reference to notions of Lie groupoids or differentiable stacks, but only using orbifold atlases, local lifts and changes of charts). In order to construct such a bicategory, we first define a $2$-category $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{A}tl)$ whose objects are reduced orbifold atlases (on any paracompact, second countable, Hausdorff topological space). The definition of morphisms is obtained as a slight modification of a definition by A. Pohl, while the definitions of $2$-morphisms and compositions of them is new in this setup. Using the bicalculus of fractions described by D. Pronk, we are able to construct the bicategory $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{O}rb)$ from the $2$-category $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{A}tl)$. We prove that $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{O}rb)$ is equivalent to the bicategory of reduced orbifolds described in terms of proper, effective, \'etale Lie groupoids by D. Pronk and I. Moerdijk and to the $2$-category of reduced orbifolds described by several authors in the past in terms of a suitable class of differentiable Deligne-Mumford stacks.