The homotopical monadicity theorem

Abstract

We give an axiomatic homotopical analog of the classical categorical Beck monadicity theorem. It often holds when classical monadicity fails. This grew out of an understanding of a general context for recognition principles in iterated loop space theory, as treated in the logical sequel ArXiv 2402.03649, but the present result applies differently and more generally. An example gives a new perspective on the old equivalence between simplicial sets and topological spaces: both are equivalent to simplicial topological spaces, and the equivalence implies a curiously close relationship between realizations of simplicial spaces and realizations of their underlying simplicial sets, viewed as discrete simplicial spaces.