The homotopy theory of strong homotopy algebras and bialgebras

Abstract

Lada introduced strong homotopy algebras to describe the structures on a deformation retract of an algebra in topological spaces. However, there is no satisfactory general definition of a morphism of strong homotopy (s.h.) algebras. Given a monad $\top$ on a simplicial category $\mathcal{C}$, we instead show how s.h. $\top$-algebras over $\mathcal{C}$ naturally form a Segal space. Given a distributive monad-comonad pair ($\top, \bot$), the same is true for s.h. ($\top, \bot$)-bialgebras over $\mathcal{C}$; in particular this yields the homotopy theory of s.h. sheaves of s.h. rings. There are similar statements for quasi-monads and quasi-comonads. We also show how the structures arising are related to derived connections on bundles.