Simplicial Monoid Actions and The Associated Universal Simplicial Monoid Construction

Abstract: The reduced universal monoid on the action category associated to a pointed simplicial M-set has appeared in the guise of various simplicial monoid and group constructions. These include the classical constructions of Milnor and James, as well as their later generalizations by Carlsson and Wu. We prove that, if any two n-simplices in the same orbit differ by the action of an invertible monoid element, then the classifying space of this reduced universal monoid is the homotopy cofiber of the inclusion from the pointed simplicial set into its reduced Borel construction. The known formulae for the respective classifying spaces of the above four constructions are special cases of this result. Thus, we unify categorially the four above-mentioned constructions.