Author: Eiko
Time: 2025-01-29 12:29:31 - 2025-01-29 12:30:15 (UTC)
This is the note taken at CHARMS2024
Additive, Abelian, and Exact Categories
Additive Categories
Definition 1. An additive category is a category such that
(Add-1) has a zero object which is both initial and terminal.
(Add-2) For any two objects and in , the hom-set has an abelian group structure and composition of morphisms is bilinear
(Add-3) has biproducts, i.e. for any , there is an object and morphisms such that
Remarks 1.
The zero element in the abelian group equals the unique morphism
is a coproduct of and and is a product of and .
The group structure on is intrinsic and there is no additional structure on . For example, given
The three underlying morphisms can be constructed using only universal properties of the (co)products and the fact that we have a zero object.
Abelian Categories
Let be a category with zero object and a morphism.
Definition 2.
is a kernel of if for all with , then factors uniquely through , there is a unique such that .
A cokernel of is defined dually, i.e. if there is a map that composes to with on the left side, then it factors uniquely through .
The image of is the kernel of the cokernel of ,
The coimage of is the cokernel of the kernel of ,

Remarks 2. The existence of kernel can also be formulated as the functor is representable for some object in .
Definition 3. An abelian category is an additive category such that
(Ab-1) Every morphism has a kernel and a cokernel.
(Ab-2) The canonical map is always an isomorphism. (This is in fact abstracting the first isomorphism theorem.)
Example 1. Examples of abelian categories include
The module category for any ring .
The category of quasi-coherent sheaves on a scheme.
(Non-example) The category of finitely generated free abelian groups is additive but not abelian, we leave the exercise for reader to check that has all kernels and cokernels and isomorphisms hold, but is not abelian.
Exact Categories
Definition 4. An exact category is an additive category together with a class of kernel-cokernel pairs called conflations (inflacion, deflation) such that
(Ex-0) is a deflation.
(Ex-1) Compositions of deflations are deflations.
(Ex-2) Any deflation and morphism , there exists a pullback square
and is a deflation.
(Ex-2’) Dually, for any inflation and morphism , there exists a pushout square
and is an inflation.
Remarks 3.
The dual statements and can be derived from the above axioms
For every isomorphism , the diagram
is a pullback square, hence every isomorphism is a deflation. (Also inflations by the dual argument.)
Example 2.
Every additive category has an exact structure given by
An abelian category can have different exact structures, for example given yb all short exact sequences, or split short exact sequences.
Let be a full and extension closed subcat of an abelian cat , with conflations induced by all short exact sequences in that has objects in . Then is an exact category. Every small exact category is of this form.
Derived category of an exact category
let be an exact category, we write as the category of cochain complexes. A morphism of cochain complexes is a collection of morphisms such that the squares with differentials commute . is null-homotopic if there exists a collection of morphisms such that .
Definition 5. The homotopy category of the underlying additive category of is
Remarks 4. For an additive category , is an exact category with conflations given by component-wise split short exact sequences of complexes. Moreover, is a Frobenius category with projectives and injectives both given by constructible complexes.
Definition 6. A complex is called acyclic if there are factorizations such that is a conflation. A morphism is a quasi-isomorphism if its mapping cone is isomorphic to an acyclic complex.
Remarks 5. So it turns out that the definition of derived catesory does not depend on the exact structure of , only depend on the exact structure of .
Introduction to Gentle Algebras
Gentle Algebras
Assem and Skowronski in 1987 introduced ’gentle algebra’ to study ’iterated tilted algebra’ of type (combinatorial data)
Definition 7. A quiver pair is gentle if
for any , there are at most two arrows , such that , and at most arrows such that .
Triangulated Categories
Exact category / homotopy, the notion of long exact sequences.
Definition 8. A triangulated category consists of the following data
An additive category .
An autoequivalence .
A class of triangles called exact triangles.
A triangle is a diagram they must satisfy the following axioms of triangulated categories
(TR-1) is closed under isomorphisms, gives a triangle, and every morphism fits into a triangle.
(TR-2) (Rotation) is a triangle if and only if is a triangle.
(TR-3) Given a diagram with exact rows
there exists a morphism such that the diagram commutes.
(Octahedral axiom) (...)
Remarks 6. Iterated rotations will give you a long sequence
Example 3. Homotopy category of an exact category is a triangulated category. Derived category of an exact category is a triangulated category. Derived categories and stable category of Frobenius category are triangulated.
Frobenius categories
Running example, let be a finite dimensional algebra and consider exact structures on the category of modules .
consists of all split short exact sequences.
consists of all short exact sequences.
Definition 9. Let be an exact category, and is injective if sends conflations to exact sequences. And has enough injectives if for every object , there exists a conflation with injective.
Example 4. In every object is projective, in this is the usual notion of projective and injective modules.
Definition 10. An exact category is called Frobenius if the following conditions hold
has enough projectives.
has enough injectives.
The projectives and injectives coincide.
Example 5.
is a Frobenius category, this is the trivial case.
In general is not Frobenius, but is Frobenius if and only if is self-injective.
exact is Frobenius.
Definition 11. Let be a Frobenius category, the stable category is the category with objects in and morphisms given by
Remarks 7. Let be projective then factors through , so in , which makes a zero object in .
Theorem 1. Let be a Frobenius category, then is a triangulated category.
Proof. Sketch: We need to be defined. is the shift functor, and is the class of triangles in . For every object we can pick a conflation Schanuel’s Lemma gives is unique up to injective objects. Direct summands gives is unique up to isomorphisms in . This allows us to turn into a functor on . We can pick another conflation by a similar process we can turn into a functor on which is the quasi-inverse of . The conflation actually shows in , since is projective.
For the triangles, let . Let be a conflation with injective. ◻
Definition 12. Let be an abelian cat, a full subcat is called wide if it is closed under direct summands and any two objects in an short exact sequence are in then so is the third. This is a stronger condition than being a Serre subcat, it adds the kernels and cokernels.
Definition 13. Let be a full subcat of and we define A pair of full subcategories is a cotorsion pair if and .
is functorially complete if every admits functorial short exact sequence with and .
is hereditory if
Differential Graded (dg) Categories
Let be a commutative ring.
Definition 14. A differential graded category is a category that is enriched over complexes . Where is the complex of -modules .
There is a monoidal structure on , , It is symmetric, Observation: the functor has a right adjoint, this functor is , which is defined as (curious execise: derive this formula by adjunction) this is a complex whose differential is given by There is also a translation functor defined by and .
Definition 15. A dg category consists of a class of objects, for all , together with composition morphism (which gives Leibniz rule) that is associative and unital.
Example 6.
is a dg category. Be aware of the funny formula , .
a -algebra, then the category of right modules, is a dg category of complexes of -modules.
A dg algebra is equivalent to a dg category with one object , .
A dg quiver, for example
Given a dg category , we can form its opposite category , with which is also a dg category.
Tensor product of two dg cats, .
Definition 16. A dg-functor of dg categories and is a functor such that is a morphism of complexes compatible with composition and units. This turns a category of df-functors.
Proposition 1. The category of dg-cats is a symmetric monoidal category. with an internal hom
Definition 17. Let be a dg-category, the -truancation is the dg-cat with the same objects but with every morphism space truncated to degree i.e. it has morphism spaces The -cocycle of are category with the same objects and morphisms The -cohomology category or homotopy category of is the category with the same objects and morphisms
Remarks 8. There are dg-Functors
Definition 18. is a quasi-equivalence if the induced functor on -cohomology categories is an equivalence.
Example 7.
For a -algebra, , are the usual category of complexes and its homotopy category.
For a dg-algebra, and are the usual notions of cycles and cohomology.
In the example of dg-quiver,
Homological Mirror Symmetry of Gentle Algebras (B-side)
A motivating example, consider the projective line , whose derived category is equivalent to that of the path algebra of the Kronecker quiver. Goal is to generalize this in two ways: gluing several s, and consider the weighted projective lines.
Geometric Model for for a graded gentle algebra
Let be a gentle algebra. Define the grading , we can consider as a differential graded algebra with the differential.
Abelian Model Categories
Motivation
Consider a commutative ring, is multiplicatively closed set. We can form the ring of fractions written as . If is not commutative, then you can still form this ring but must satisfy some properties for it to be written as the fraction form. In general it is only written in a product form where some and some .
Theorem 2 (Gabriel-Zisman). Let be a category and , there is a construction of a category called the localizing category with a canonical functor sending into isomorphisms, such that for any functor that sends to isomorphisms, there exists a unique functor that makes the diagram commute.
Such categories exist but the morphisms are very hard to control, we can have long sequences of elements in not reducible to a fraction (roof). Also, the hom sets may not be sets but proper classes. The concept of Model categories is a way to control the morphisms in the localization that solves these problems.
Example 8. Consider a ring and abelian, if we localize with quasi-isoms, this is a hard step an in general we pass to and then to by calculus of fractions.
Model Categories
Definition 19. Let be a category and take two morphisms in . We say that , if for any CD
there exists at least one dashed arrow making the diagram commute.
A pair of subclasses of morphisms of is called a weak factorizatoin system (WFS) if
are closed under retarcts,
,
for every , there is with . If this is determined functorially, we say that the WFS is functorial.
Let be a category and we take three subclasses cof, fib, weq of , we say that these subclasses define a model structure on if
weq is closed under retractions (in a sense they contain all isomorphisms),
weq satisfy the 2-out-of-3 property, i.e. if and are composable and any two of are in weq, then so is the third.
and are WFS. They are called trivial cofibrations and trivial fibrations.
Let be a model category with initial object and terminal object
is called cofibrant if is a cofibration.
is called fibrant if is a fibration.
For any object , there exists factorizations
Homotopy Category
To speak about homotopy categories we need to define homotopies.
Definition 20. Let be a model category and be two morphisms. We say is left homotopic to if there exists a cylineder object
Enhancements
Extriangulated categories
Exact dg categories, after Xiaofa Chen
Enhancements
Let a commutative graded ring (eg a field), a dg -category (which could be a -algebra, identified with a dg-cat with one object, or proj A, ) is the cat of dg -modules . (eg, , ) is the cat module homotopy of dg -modules.
Q-shaped derived category
By Henrik Holm (Copenhagen) arXiv 2212.12524
Examples
be a hereditory noetherian commutative ring, a -algebra, (field, path algebra, -algebra (ring))
Let is the -pre-additive category given by the quiver with relations that two consequtive arrows compose to zero. You can see this is just chain complexes of -modules.
We have weak equivalences, think them as quasi-isomorphisms. We invert them
Let now is the -pre-additive category given by the same quiver with the previous one, but with the relations that consequtive compsitions give to zero. Now
You could also replace by some different diagram, let now defined by the -cycle quiver with relations that consequtive compositions give to zero. (you can also use instead of ).
Setup
Let be a category, satisfying
is -pre-additive,
has each hom set finitely generated projective over ,
locally bounded, if you look at the set of inside such that , this set is finite. The other way holds as well.
where and for .
There’s an ideal if and if . We must have for some .
Serre functor, a -linear equivalence such that Serre duality formulas holds
Example 9. Let be a field and be given by a quiver with relations over such that the corresponding bound quiver algebra is self-injective. Q will actually be recovered in the following way, Actually we can give the Serre functor by the Nakayama-functor where is the dual of .
there is an obvious forgetful functor .
They are pretty nice Grothendieck abelian categories, have enough projectives and injectives, and have a Set indexed limits and colimits.
is the full subcat of consisting of projective objects. is the full subcat of consisting of injective objects. Within then you have , in , and , in .
Homology
The over all thought is that has two abelian model cat structures, and we can get the derived category by these model structures.
If we have , for ,
Fractionally Calabi Yau Posets Corroborating a conjecture by Chapoton
Combinatorial sequences lined to representation of finite dimensional algebras, linked to some symplectic geometry.
A Lattice of Categories of An Algebra
Let be a finite dimensional algebra over some field , and of the category of f.g. modules, and is the Auslander Reilen transformation of the module category.
Basic definitions and backgrounds
A pair of modules (and a projective) is -rigid if has no non-zero homomorphisms . -tilting, if additionally, (number of direct summand of indecomps).
Theorem 3. there is a poset isomoprhism between the set of -tilting pairs and functorialy finite torsion classes of -modules, two term tileing objects in .
graded gentle gives a ribbon graph which in turn gives a inter polygon and a dual graph and disection.
Theorem 4 (Opper-Plauoudou-S18+new version, Qiu-Zhang-Zhou 22). We have gives a geometric model of . Enough to know the indecomposable objects, which B-M tells us are in bijection with graded curves .
The ingredients are, is a homotopy class of curves and some funny stuffs, which gives a comibnatorial winding number which encodes both the shift and fct and the grading structure of S (LP 20).
A basis of morphism space between indecomposables given by intersections of curves. Mapping cones given y resolutions of crossings.
Homology
Idea: aim for the definitions of weak equivalences. For and , consider the functor
Exact objects by varing we can get all classical homological functors.
Weak equivalences
This is gonna be all the morphisms in Here note that we need not just but also be zero.
Let us see how be come exact complexes and be come quasi-isomophisms in examples.
Example 10. Let , remember that objects in are chain complexes of -modules. If you look the definiotion of , we can compute them in two different ways, projective resolve the left term, or injective resolve the right term. We will use the projective resolution.
Now we take the representable
Last Lecture of Q-shaped derived category
Recall that we have The machinary of these isomoprhisms requivers varieous approximations. Today we want to choose a different and produce completely different results. Let be the following category Consider a which is given as (at degree )
Cotorsion Pairs
The following are hereditary, functorially complete cotorsion pairs in ,
, , these are
, , these are
(Recall that cotorsion pair means and , hereditary means , functorially complete means for every object there exists a functorial (in ) short exact sequence with and .)
Model Structures
There is a hereditary Hovey triple in . This gives the projective model category structure on consisting of with
consists of compositions where the first arrow have cokernel in and the second arrow have kernel in .
consists of monomorphisms with cokernels in .
consists of epimorphisms with kernels in .
You also get is a Frobenius category with projectives-injectives . And i.e. The injective version :
Perfect Objects
(Bounded complexes of finitely generated projective modules, ’compact’ in the derived category) The compact objects are (this is a strong form of being finitely generated)
Definition 21. Strictly perfect objects are the such that
is f.g. proj.
These can be viewed as the full subcategory inside .
Theorem 6. In general . For example take where is a field, and the Jordan quiver with relation .
Theorem 7. is compactly generated by
Exact dg-categories after Xiaofa Chen
Homotopy Kernels and Cokernels
Exact dg-categories definitions and first properties
Let be a commutative ring, let’s fix a dg-category, then we have all that we have seen the notion of three term complexes, that’s just a diagram in of the following shape whose composition is not zero but homotopy to zero, i.e. with and . Let me introduce an auxiliary category which is a dg-path -category of the dg quiver whose representations are these diagrams where , . I don’t want to view them as dg-functors but dg-bimodules, just a change of view point. -term homotopy complex are right representable dg-bimodules . The bimodule depends covariantly on the second argument. is representable in , for .
Definition 22. H3t = Homotopy category of 3-term complexes = full subcat of whose objects are right representable dg-bimodules .
Remarks 9. Equivalently H3t = .
Definition 23. An exact structure on is a class of homotopy kernel-cokernel pairs
(Ex-0) is an inflation.
(Ex-1) Inflations are stable under composition.
(Ex-2) Any cospan
admits a homotopy pushout where is an inflation.
(Ex-2op) Any span
admits a homotopy pullback where is a deflation.
Example 11.
If then exact structure on coincides with the Quillen exact structure on .
If is pretriangulated, then the class of all homotopy ker-cokernel pairs is an exact structure. (Up to isomorphism, there pairs are the sequence )
Recall that quasi-equivalence is a dg-functor such that is fully faithful (induces quasi-isoms in the morphisms of complexes) is an equivalence
If is a quasi-equiv, it induces a bijection Remark: Positselsk also have a notion of ’exact DG-category’ that is different of complete different motivations and does not have this property. (Preprint 2110.08237 October 21, 140 page)
If is exact dg and is an extension closed (in terms of homotopy kernel and cokernel pairs) full subcat, then inherits an exact structure from .
Some basic results
We know that triangulated categories have topological enhancement given by stable infinity categories and algebraic enhavment given by pretriangulated extrianglulated.
Theorem 8 (Chen). If is exact dg, then is canonically extriangulated with parametrizing.
images of in of conflations of , in should be exactly equal to zero.
Example 12. is a -algebra, take dg category . With all ses of complexes (component wise split exact sequences). Then is extrianglulated and is the homotopy category of complexes of projective modules.
Link to exact -cat
dg cat, the dg-nerve of is a simplicial set with -simplices are the trictly unital functors .
Lurie: is an -category (quasi-cat).
Faonle : pretriangulated is stable -cat.
Suppose we have an extract dg structure on , we hope that is a bounded exact dg-cat, this is indeed the case.
Theorem 9 (Chen).
becomes a Barwick exact -category.
We have a canonical bijection Note that is completely independent of the -linear structure on since it comes from a free -module.
Further results: An exact dg category has a good derived category , an exact dg categories do reproduce! the poset of all exact structures on is manageable. (Find details in the notes)
Now I would like to conclude by giving an application, a Lower-Auslander correspondence. It works very nicely using this framework.
Lower-Auslander Correspondence
First we have to define what zero Auslander categories should be.
Definition 24. An exact dg cat is zero-Auslander if is zero-Auslander as an extriangulated category, i.e.
has enough projectives and its global dimension dominate dimension of .
Example 13. Let’s take eg , then is zero-Auslander. (Draw an AR-quiver of projectives and injectives in , there are no proj-injectives.)
Another example concentrated in degree zero, , then is not zero-Auslander.
Another example, let be the prepoje algebra of type , is the module of , with a nonstandard exact structure, tilting object. is a conflation iff its image under is exact. is concentrated in degree and is -Auslander.
Theorem 10 (Chen). There is a canonical bijection between connective exact dg categories which are zero-Auslander / equiv, and pairs where is a connective additive dg category and is a full dg subcategory.
Bijection :
Remarks 10. As a consequence, Chen proved the algebraic case of a conjecture by Fang-Gorsky-Palu-Plamondon-Pressland.