Vegard Fjellbo (UiO) The optimal triangulation of regular simplicial sets

The Barratt nerve BSd X of the Kan subdivision Sd X of a simplicial set X \in sSet is a triangulation. The Barratt nerve is defined as taking the poset of non-degenerate simplices, thinking of it as a small category and then finally taking the nerve.Waldhausen, Jahren and Rognes (Piecewise linear manifolds and categories of simple maps) named this construction 'the improvement functor' because of the homotopical properties and because its target is non-singular simplicial sets. A simplicial set is said to be 'non-singular' if its non-degenerate simplices are embedded. There is a least drastic way of making a simplicial set non-singular called 'desingularization', which is a functor D:sSet -> nsSet that is left adjoint to the inclusion. The functor DSd^{^2} is the left Quillen functor of a Quillen equivalence where the model structure on sSet is the standard one where the weak equivalences are those that induce weak homotopy equivalences and the fibrations are the Kan fibrations. I will talk about the main steps of the proof that the natural map DSd X -> BX is an isomorphism for regular X. This implies that DSd^{^2} is a triangulation and that the improvement functor is less ad hoc than it may seem. Furthermore, I will explain how the result provides evidence that any cofibrant non-singular simplicial set is the nerve of some poset.