Contents

Idea

A thin homotopy between paths $f,g:I\to X$ in a topological space $X$ (with $I=\left[0,1\right]$ the standard interval) is a homotopy $I×I\to I$ which, roughly speaking, has zero area.

Definition

Thin homotopies in smooth spaces

A (smooth) homotopy $F:I×I\to X$ between smooth paths in a smooth space $X$ is called thin if the rank of its differential $dF\left(s,t\right):{T}_{s,t}I×I\to {T}_{F\left(s\right),F\left(t\right)}X$ is less than 2 for all $s,t\in I×I$.

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Thin homotopies in topological spaces

The following is taken from

• K.A. Hardie, K.H. Kamps, R.W. Kieboom A homotopy 2-groupoid of a Hausdorff space, Appl. Cat. Str.8 (2000).

We define a finite tree to be a one-dimensional finite polyhedron.

A homotopy $F:I×I\to X$ between paths $F\left(-,0\right)$ and $F\left(-,1\right)$ in the topological space $X$ is called thin if $F$ factors through a finite tree,

$I×I\stackrel{{F}_{0}}{\to }T\stackrel{{F}_{1}}{\to }X$I\times I \stackrel{F_0}{\to} T \stackrel{F_1}{\to} X

such that the paths ${F}_{0}\left(-,0\right):I\to T$, ${F}_{0}\left(-,1\right):I\to T$ are piecewise-linear.

When $X$ is Hausdorff, points, paths and thin homotopies in $X$ form a bigroupoid.

Applications

Path n-groupoids

The definition of path groupoids and path n-groupoids as strict or semi-strict n-groupoids typically involves taking morphisms to be thin homotopy classes of paths. See there for more details.

Parallel transport

The parallel transport of a connection on a bundle is an assignment of fiber-homomorphisms to paths in a manifold that is invariant under thin homotopy.

Revised on September 3, 2010 06:13:50 by Urs Schreiber (87.212.203.135)