Homotopy Ends and Thomason Model Categories

Abstract

In the last year of his life, Bob Thomason reworked the notion of a model category, used to adapt homotopy theory to algebra, and used homotopy ends to affirmatively solve a problem raised by Grothendieck: find a notion of model structure which is inherited by functor categories. In this paper we explain and prove Thomason's results, based on his private notebooks. The first half presents Thomason's ideas about homotopy ends and its generalizations. This material may be of independent interest. Then we define Thomason model categories and give some examples. The usual proof shows that the homotopy category exists. In the last two sections we prove the main theorem: functor categories inherit a Thomason model structure, at least when the original category is enriched over simplicial sets and fibrations are preserved by limits.