Non functorial cylinders in a model category

Abstract

Taking cylinder objects, as defined in a model category, we consider a cylinder construction in a cofibration category, which provides a reformulation of relative homotopy in the sense of Baues. Although this cylinder is not a functor we show that it verifies a list of properties which are very closed to those of an I-category (or category with a natural cylinder functor). Considering these new properties, we also give an alternative description of Baues’ relative homotopy groupoids.