Local structures on stratified spaces

Abstract

We develop a theory of conically smooth stratified spaces and their smooth moduli, including a notion of classifying maps for tangential structures. We characterize continuous space-valued sheaves on these conically smooth stratified spaces in terms of tangential data, and we similarly characterize 1-excisive invariants of stratified spaces. These results are based on the existence of open handlebody decompositions for conically smooth stratified spaces, an inverse function theorem, a tubular neighborhood theorem, an isotopy extension theorem, and functorial resolutions of singularities to smooth manifolds with corners.