Embeddings from the point of view of immersion theory: Part I

Let M and N be smooth manifolds without boundary. Immersion theory suggests that an understanding of the space of smooth embeddings emb(M, N) should come from an analysis of the cofunctor V bar right arrow emb(V, N) from the poset O of open subsets of M to spaces. We therefore abstract some of the properties of this cofunctor, and develop a suitable calculus of such cofunctors, Goodwillie style, with Taylor series and so on. The terms of the Taylor series for the cofunctor V bar right arrow emb(V, N) are explicitly determined. In a sequel to this paper, we introduce the concept of an analytic cofunctor from O to spaces, and show that the Taylor series of an analytic cofunctor F converges to F. Deep excision theorems due to Goodwillie and Goodwillie-Klein imply that the cofunctor V bar right arrow emb(V, N) is analytic when dim(N) - dim(M) >= 3.