A 2-category of chronological cobordisms and odd Khovanov homology
We create a framework for odd Khovanov homology in the spirit of Bar-Natan's construction for the ordinary Khovanov homology. Namely, we express the cube of resolutions of a link diagram as a diagram in a certain 2-category of chronological cobordisms and show that it is 2-commutative: the composition of 2-morphisms along any 3-dimensional subcube is trivial. This allows us to create a chain complex whose homotopy type modulo certain relations is a link invariant. Both the original and the odd Khovanov...