Combinatorial n-fold monoidal categories and n-fold operads

Abstract

Operads were originally defined as V-operads, that is, enriched in a symmetric or braided monoidal category V. The symmetry or braiding in V is required in order to describe the associativity axiom the operads must obey, as well as the associativity that must be a property of the action of an operad on any of its algebras. After a review of the role of operads in loop space theory and higher categories we go over definitions of iterated monoidal categories and introduce a large family of simple examples. Then we generalize the definition of operad by defining n-fold operads and their algebras in an iterated monoidal category. We discuss examples of these that live in the previously described categories. Finally we describe the iterated monoidal category of m-fold V-operads.