A note on the composition product of symmetric sequences

Abstract

We consider the composition product of symmetric sequences in the case where the underlying symmetric monoidal structure does not commute with coproducts. Even though this composition product is not a monoidal structure on symmetric sequences, it has enough structure, namely that of a `normal oplax' monoidal product, to be able to define monoids (which are then operads on the underlying category) and make a bar construction. The main benefit of this work is in the dual setting, where it allows us to define a cobar construction for cooperads.