fc-multicategories

Abstract

fc-multicategories are a very general kind of two-dimensional structure, encompassing bicategories, monoidal categories, double categories and ordinary multicategories. We define them and explain how they provide a natural setting for two familiar categorical ideas. The first is the bimodules construction, traditionally carried out on suitably cocomplete bicategories but perhaps more naturally carried out on fc-multicategories. The second is enrichment: there is a theory of categories enriched in an fc-multicategory, extending the usual theory of enrichment in a monoidal category. We finish by indicating how this work is just the simplest case of a much larger phenomenon.