Permutative categories, multicategories and algebraic $K$–theory

Abstract

We show that the $K$–theory construction of our paper [Adv. Math 205 (2006) 163-228], which preserves multiplicative structure, extends to a symmetric monoidal closed bicomplete source category, with the multiplicative structure still preserved. The source category of [op cit], whose objects are permutative categories, maps fully and faithfully to the new source category, whose objects are (based) multicategories.