Let be a space. We can have a fibrant simplicial set, namely the singular simplicial set
, where
is the set of all continuous maps from the
-simplex to
. However
seems too large as there are uncountably many elements in each
. On the other hand, we need the fibrant assumption to have simplicial homotopy groups. This means that the simplicial model for a given space cannot be too small. We wish to have a smallest fibrant simplicial set which will be the idea behind minimal simplicial sets.
Let be a fibrant simplicial set. For
we say that
if the representing maps
and
are homotopic relative to
.
A fibrant simplicial set is said to be minimal if it has the property that implies
.
Let be a fibrant simplicial set.
is minimal iff for any
,
such that
for all
implies
.
In other words, it means that a fibrant simplicial set is minimal iff for any two elements with all faces but one the same, then the missed face must be the same.