E-INFINITY COALGEBRA STRUCTURE ON CHAIN

COMPLEXES WITH COEFFICIENTS IN Z

arXiv:2004.06652v1 [math.AT] 14 Apr 2020

JESÚS SÁNCHEZ-GUEVARA

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to construct an E∞ -operad R and prove

that this operad induces an E∞ -coalgebra structure on chain complexes with
coefficients in Z. The operad R is an alternative to the description of the
E∞ -coalgebra structure on chain complexes by the Barrat-Eccles operad.

1. Introduction
In [10], Smith describes an E∞ -coalgebra structure on the chain complex of a
simplicial set when the coefficients ring is Z. In order to do this, he uses an E∞ -
operad, denoted S, with components RΣn , the Σn -free bar resolution of Z. The
morphisms fn : RΣn ⊗ C∗ (X) → C∗ (X)⊗n determined by the E∞ -coalgebra struc-
ture contains a family of higher diagonals on C∗ (X), starting with an homotopic
version of the iterated Alexander-Whitney diagonal (given by x 7→ fn ([ ]n ⊗x)). The
construction made by Smith can be seen as a version of the Barratt-Eccles operad
(see [1]). Moreover, Berger and Fresse (see [2]) construct a explicit coaction over
the normalized chain complex associated to a simplicial set by the Barrat-Eccles
operad that extend the structure given by the Alexander-Whitney diagonal.
In this article, it is constructed an E∞ -operad R which is used to give an alter-
native description of the E∞ -structure on the chain complex of an simplicial set.
The method used to construct R gives an simply way to produce E∞ -operads.
The operad R presents similarities with the bar-cobar resolution of Ginzburg-
Kapranov (see [6]). Berger and Moerdij (see [3]) show that this resolution can
identified with the W -construction of Boardman and Vogt (see [4]), given as a result
that applied to the Barratt-Eccles operad, the W -construction gives a cofibrant
resolution of it. Then, the construction of R can be seen as a middle point between
the Barratt-Eccles operad and its W -construction.
The results in this article are based in the Phd thesis of the author [9], where the
construction of E∞ -operads is needed to study homotopy properties, described by
Alain Prout in [7] and [8], of structures associated to chain complexes determinated
by the Eilenberg-Mac lane transformation.

2. Preliminaries
2.1. Differential graded modules. A Z-module L M is graded if there is a collec-
tion {Mi }i∈Z of submodules of M such that M = i∈Z Mi . A differential graded
module with augmentation and coefficients in Z, or DGA-module for short, is a
graded module M together with an application ∂ : M → M of degree −1 such that
∂ 2 = 0, an applications ǫ : M → Z, η : Z → M of degree 0, called the augmentation

The author was supported by Universidad de Costa Rica.

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2 JESÚS SÁNCHEZ-GUEVARA

and coaugmentation of M , respectively, such that ǫ ◦ η = 1Z . The category of

DGA-modules is denoted DGA-Mod.
2.2. Operads. An operad P on the monoidal category DGA-Mod is a collections of
DGA-modules {P (n)}n≥1 together with right actions of the symmetric group Σn on
each component P (n), and morphisms of the form γ : P (r)⊗P (i1 )⊗P (ir ) → P (i1 +
· · ·+ir ), which satisfies the usual conditions of existence of an unit, asociativity and
equivariance. The morphisms γ will be called composition morphisms or simply the
composition of the operad. A morphism between operads f : P → Q, is a collection
of DGA-morphisms fn : P (n) → Q(n) of degree 0, respecting the units, composition
and equivariance. The category of operads is denoted OP
If we forget the composition morphism of an operad P , the collections with the
right actions by the symmetrics groups are called S-modules. They form a category
denoted S-Mod. The forgetful functor U : OP → S-Mod has a right adjoint denoted
F : S-Mod → OP, called the free operad functor.
Definition 2.1. Let P be an operad on the category of DGA-Z-modules, with
composition γ. A sub S-module I of U (P) is called an operadic ideal of P if
it satisfies γ(x ⊗ y1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ yk ) ∈ I, whenever some of the elements x, y1 , . . . , yk
belongs to I.
Definition 2.2. Let P be an operad and I an operadic ideal of P. We define
the quotient operad P/I as the operad with components given by (P/I)(k) =
P (k)/I(k) for every k ≥ 1, and composition induced by the composition of P.
Remark 2.3. Clearly the operad structure P/I is well defined by the properties of
the ideal, which allows the pass to the quotient of the composition in P.
2.3. The Bar Resolution. Σn will denote the symmetric group on of the set [n] =
{1, . . . , n}. The chain complex with coefficients in Z given by the Σn -free bar reso-
lution of Z is denoted RΣn . Recall that degree m elements of RΣn are Z-linear com-
binations of elements of the form σ[σ1 / · · · /σm P],mwhere σ, σ1 , . . . , σm ∈ Σn and their
border is determinated by the equations ∂ = i=0 (−1)i ∂i , where ∂0 [σ1 / · · · /σm ] =
σ1 [σ2 / · · · /σm ], for 0 < i < m ∂i [σ1 / · · · /σm ] = [σ1 / · · · /σi σi+1 / · · · /σm ], and
∂m [σ1 / · · · /σm ] = [σ1 / · · · /σm−1 ]. In degree zero, the Z[Σn ]-module is generated
by the element writed [ ].
The contracting chain homotopy for the chain complex RΣn is the application
ψn : RΣn → RΣn of degree 1 defined by the relations ψn [σ1 / · · · /σm ] = 0 and
ψn σ[σ1 / · · · /σm ] = [σ/σ1 / · · · /σm ].
2.4. E∞ -Operads.
Definition 2.4. An operad P on the category DGA-Mod is called E∞ -operad if
each component P (n) is a Σn -free resolution of Z.
Definition 2.5. We call E∞ -algebra any P-algebra with P an E∞ -operad. And
in the same way, an E∞ -coalgebra is an P-coalgebra where the operad P is an
E∞ -operad.
We introduce a notion of morphism between E∞ -coalgebras which is well suited
for our purpose.
Definition 2.6. Let P be an E∞ -operad on the category DGA-Mod, and let A, B
P-coalgebras. A morphism f : A → B of P-coalgebras is a morphism of DGA-Mod
E-INFINITY COALGEBRA STRUCTURE ON CHAIN COMPLEXES WITH COEFFICIENTS IN Z
3

which preserves the P-coalgebra structure up to homotopy, that is, the following
diagram

ϕA
n
P(n) ⊗ A / A⊗n

(2.1) 1⊗f f ⊗n
 
P(n) ⊗ B / B ⊗n
ϕB
n

is commutative up to homotopy for every n > 0, where ϕA B

n and ϕn are the
associated morphisms of the P-coalgebra structure of A and B, respectively. The
category of coalgebras on the operad P is denoted P-CoAlg.

3. The Operad R
In this section, it is constructed an E∞ -operad R which is used to describe
C∗ (X) as a E∞ -coalgebra. Roughly speaking, to construct the operad R, first take
the S-module with components the Z[Σn ]-free bar resolutions of Z, and then make
the quotient of the free operad on this S-module by a suitable operad ideal I (see
[6] §2.1), such that our operad will have only one generator of degree 0 in each
component.
Definition 3.1. Let S be the be the S-module on the category DGA-Mod, with
components S(n) = RΣn , the Z[Σn ]-free bar resolution of Z. Define the operad R
as the quotient operad F (S)/J , where J is the operadic ideal of the free operad
F (S) generating by the elements of degree zero of F (S) of the form x − y, where x
and y are not null.
Theorem 3.2. The operad R is an E∞ -operad and induces an E∞ -coalgebra es-
tructure on C∗ (X).
Proof. It suffices to exhibit in each arity an contracting chain homotopy. In arity
n, the contracting chain homotopy Φn : R(n) → R(n) is obtained by extending on
R(n) the contracting chain homotopy ψn from the component RΣn of S as follows.
R(2) is isomorphic to S(2), so the contracting chain homotopy remains the same.
When n > 2, R(n) has two types of elements: the elements from the injection
S(n) → R(n) and the elements of the form γ(x; y1 , . . . , yr ), where x ∈ S(r) and
yj ∈ R(ij ). In the first case Φn will behaves as the contracting chain homotopy in
S(n), and for the second case, we define Φn γ(x; y1 , . . . , yr ) = γ(Φn (x); y1 , . . . , yr ).
To check that ∂Φn + Φn ∂ = 1, let x of the form [σ1 | · · · |σl ], with σj ∈ Σr . Now
∂Φn γ(x; y1 , . . . , yr ) = ∂γ(Φn (x); y1 , . . . , yr ) = 0. On the other hand,

(3.1) Φn ∂γ(x; y1 , . . . , yr )
X
(3.2) =Φn γ(∂x; y1 , . . . , yr ) + (sign) Φn γ(x; y1 , . . . , ∂yj , . . . , yr )
X
(3.3) =γ(Φn ∂x; y1 , . . . , yr ) + (sign) γ(Φn x; y1 , . . . , ∂yj , . . . , yr )
(3.4) =γ(x − ∂Φn x; y1 , . . . , yr )
(3.5) =γ(x; y1 , . . . , yr )
4 JESÚS SÁNCHEZ-GUEVARA

When x has the form σ[σ1 | · · · |σl ] the verification is similar, because the com-
positions γ satisfy the following equivariance relation: γ(σ[σ1 | · · · |σl ]; y1 , . . . , yr ) =
γ([σ1 | · · · |σl ]; yσ−1 (1) , . . . , yσ−1 (l) ).
Now, the universal property of the coaugmentation ι of the adjunction F ⊢ U ,
gives the commutative diagram:

ι / F (S)
S❈
❈❈
(3.6)
❈❈
❈ p
i ❈❈❈
! 
S
Where the morphism i is the identity of S-modules. It is easy to see that p
respect the ideal J because, when the free operad construction is interpreted by
rooted trees, p is essentially the contraction of vertices of trees. Thus p pass to
the quotient and we obtain a morphism of operads p : R → S, which implies that
every S-coalgebra is an R-coalgebra. 
Corollary 3.3. The construction in theorem 3.2 is functorial.
Proof. The functoriality of the S-coalgebra structure is heredited by the R-coalgebra
estructure by the operad morphism p : R → S in the proof of theorem 3.2, as shows
the following commutative diagramm for every morphism f : X → Y :
p
R /S▲ /
▲▲ CoEnd(C∗ (X))
▲▲
(3.7) ▲▲
▲▲▲ f∗
▲& 
CoEnd(C∗ (Y ))

We can understand the relation between the operad R and the operad S by the
following proposition.
Corollary 3.4. There is an operad ideal I such that S ∼
= R/I.
Proof. This is because the underlying S-module of S is S, and a direct consequence
of the definition of compositions γ of S(see [10]), in the sense that, the operadic
ideal I is defined by the identification needed for γ. 
In [5] Vallette and Dehling describe an operad similar to R and they show that
this operad can be used to explicitly state (by the use relations) the definition of
E∞ -algebras, as it is already possible for A∞ -algebras.
Corollary 3.5. Let A be a DGA-module together with:
(1) For every integer m ≥ 1, n ≥ 1 and σ, σ1 , . . . , σn ∈ Σm , morphisms of
degree n:
µσ[σ1 /···/σn ]m : A → A⊗n .
(2) For every integer m ≥ 1 and σ ∈ Σm , applications of degree 0:
µσ[ ]m : A → A⊗n .
Suppose these morphisms satisfy the following relations:
(1) µσx = µx σ, where σ is the right action on n factors.
E-INFINITY COALGEBRA STRUCTURE ON CHAIN COMPLEXES WITH COEFFICIENTS IN Z
5

(2) µx+y = µx + µy and ∂µx = µ∂x .

(3) (µ[ ]m1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ µ[ ]mn )µ[ ]n = µ[ ]m1 +···+mn .
Then, A is an R-coalgebra if and only if A has an structure of this type.
Proof. This is directly implied by the operad morphism R → Coend(A). 

References
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theory, Topology 13 (1974), no. 1, 25 – 45.
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of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 137 (2004), 135–174.
3. C. Berger and I. Moerdijk, Resolution of coloured operads and rectification of homotopy al-
gebras, Contemporary mathematics 431 (2007), 31–58.
4. J. M. Boardman and R. M. Vogt, Homotopy invariant algebraic structures on topological
spaces, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1973.
5. M. Dehling and B. Vallette, Symmetric homotopy theory for operads, ArXiv e-prints (2015).
6. V. Ginzburg and M. Kapranov, Koszul duality for operads, Duke Math. J. 76 (1994), no. 1,
203–272.
7. A. Prouté, Sur la transformation d’Eilenberg-Maclane, C. R. Acad. Sc. Paris 297 (1983),
193–194.
8. , Sur la diagonal d’Alexander-Whitney, C. R. Acad. Sc. Paris 299 (1984), 391–392.
9. J. Sánchez-Guevara, About l-algebras, Ph.D. thesis, Universit Paris VII, Paris, 2016.
10. J. R. Smith, Iterating the cobar construction, American Mathematical Society: Memoirs of
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Escuela de Matemáticas, Universidad de Costa Rica

E-mail address: jesus.sanchez [email protected]