We proved in a previous article that the bar complex of an E 1 -algebra inherits a natural E 1 -algebra structure. As a consequence, a well-defined iterated bar construction B n .A/ can be associated to any algebra over an E 1 -operad. In the case of a commutative algebra A, our iterated bar construction reduces to the standard iterated bar complex of A.The first purpose of this paper is to give a direct effective definition of the iterated bar complexes of E 1 -algebras. We use this effective definition to prove that the n-fold bar construction admits an extension to categories of algebras over E n -operads.Then we prove that the n-fold bar complex determines the homology theory associated to the category of algebras over an E n -operad. In the case n D 1, we obtain an isomorphism between the homology of an infinite bar construction and the usual -homology with trivial coefficients.
57T30; 55P48, 18G55, 55P35
IntroductionThe standard reduced bar complex B.A/ is basically defined as a functor from the category of associative differential graded algebras (associative dg-algebras for short) to the category of differential graded modules (dg-modules for short). In the case of a commutative dg-algebra, the bar complex B.A/ inherits a natural multiplicative structure and still forms a commutative dg-algebra. This observation implies that an iterated bar complex B n .A/ is naturally associated to any commutative dg-algebra A, for every n 2 N . In this paper, we use techniques of modules over operads to study extensions of iterated bar complexes to algebras over E n -operads. Our main result asserts that the n-fold bar complex B n .A/ determines the homology theory associated to an E n -operad.For the purpose of this work, we take the category of dg-modules as a base category and we assume that all operads belong to this category. An E n -operad refers to a dg-operad equivalent to the chain operad of little n-cubes. Many models of E n -operads come in nested sequences ( )such that E D colim n E n is an E 1 -operad, an operad equivalent in the homotopy category of dg-operads to the operad of commutative algebras C. Recall that an E 1 -operad is equivalent to the operad of associative algebras A and forms, in another usual terminology, an A 1 -operad. The structure of an algebra over an A 1 -operad includes a product W A˝A ! A and a full set of homotopies that make this product associative. The structure of an algebra over an E 1 -operad includes a product W A˝A ! A and a full set of homotopies that make this product associative and commutative. The intermediate structure of an algebra over an E n -operad includes a product W A˝A ! A which is fully homotopy associative, but homotopy commutative up to some degree only.Throughout the paper, we use the letter C to denote the base category of dg-modules and the notation P C , where P is any operad, refers to the category of P-algebras in dg-modules. The category of commutative dg-algebras, identified with the category of algebras over the commutative operad C, is denoted by ...