Coherence for rewriting 2-theories

Abstract

General coherence theorems are constructed that yield explicit presentations of categorical and algebraic objects. The categorical structures involved are finitary discrete Lawvere 2-theories, though they are approached within the language of term rewriting theory. Two general coherence theorems are obtained. The first applies to terminating and confluent rewriting 2-theories. This result is exploited to construct systematic presentations for the higher Thompson groups and the Higman-Thompson groups. The presentations are categorically interesting as they arise from higher-arity analogues of the Stasheff/Mac Lane coherence axioms, which involve phenomena not present in the classical binary axioms. The second general coherence theorem holds for 2-theories that are not necessarily confluent or terminating and is used to construct a new proof of coherence for iterated monoidal categories, which arise as categorical models of iterated loop spaces and fail to be confluent.