The categorical graph minor theorem

Abstract

We define the graph minor category and prove that the category of contravariant representations of the graph minor category over a Noetherian ring is locally Noetherian. This can be regarded as a categorification of the Robertson--Seymour graph minor theorem. In addition, we generalize Sam and Snowden's Gr\"obner theory of categories to the setting of pairs consisting of a category along with a functor to sets, and we apply this theory to the edge functor on the graph minor category. As an application, we study homology groups of unordered configuration spaces of graphs, improving upon various finite generation results in this subject.