Thin Posets, CW Posets, and Categorification

Abstract

Motivated by generalizing Khovanov's categorification of the Jones polynomial, we study functors $F$ from thin posets $P$ to abelian categories $\mathcal{A}$. Such functors $F$ produce cohomology theories $H^*(P,\mathcal{A},F)$. We find that CW posets, that is, face posets of regular CW complexes, satisfy conditions making them particularly suitable for the construction of such cohomology theories. We consider a category of tuples $(P,\mathcal{A},F,c)$, where $c$ is a certain $\{1,-1\}$-coloring of the cover relations in $P$, and show the cohomology arising from a tuple $(P,\mathcal{A},F,c)$ is functorial, and independent of the coloring $c$ up to natural isomorphism. Such a construction provides a framework for the categorification of a variety of familiar topological/combinatorial invariants: anything expressible as a rank-alternating sum over a thin poset.