Author: Eiko
Tags: Derived Category, Homological Algebra, Derived Functors, Semi-Projective Resolutions, dg-category, Ring Theory, Derived Tensor Evaluation, Derived Homomorphism Evaluation, Dualizing Complexes, Koszul Complex
Time: 2024-08-13 12:00:00 - 2024-08-17 12:00:00 (UTC)
This is the notes I took at the seminar Masterclass in Derived Category Methods in Ring Theory, Aarhus University, 13-16 August 2024. Some of the notations have been altered for my own preference.
Category of Chain Complexes
Let be a ring acting on the left, and is a -algebra (e.g. ).
Definition 1.
An -complex is a graded -module with an endomorphism of degree , such that the ,
We use the notation to mean the underlying graded -module which is also identified with the complex with zero differential.
A homomorphism of -complexes is a graded homomorphism , while a chain map is a homomorphism of complexes, we allow chain map with non-zero degree , that satisfy
A morphism is a chain map of degree .
Denote the category of -complexes and morphisms of complexes, the category of -bicomplexes and morphisms of bicomplexes.
Given a complex, we look at certain subcomplexes that are actually graded modules
Definition 2. Note that the differentials restricted to and are automatically zero.
Remarks 1. A morphism at complexes restricts to and , and induces a morphism .
Definition 3. An -complex is called acyclic if .
Definition 4. A chain map is called null-homotopic if there exists a degree chain map such that .
Definition 5. Two chain maps and are called homotopic if is null-homotopic.
Proposition 1. are homotopic .
The total Hom complex
Given -complexes and , the total hom i.e. with differential given by
Proposition 2. Let , be -complexes,
Definition 6. Given two morphisms , there is a functor map mapping . We denote and .
Theorem 1. Hom is a functor . If we have more structures on the complexes, we can have for example
Definition 7 (Shift). Let be an -complex, define the suspension
Total Tensor Product
Given -complex and -complex , the total tensor product is where in degree , with differential given by
Definition 8. Given -complex morphism and , there is a morphism
Theorem 2. The tensor product is a functor if we have more structures on the complexes, we can have for example
Its behavior with shifting is
Definition 9. Let be an -complex, define define
Definition 10 (Hard Truncations).
Definition 11 (Soft Truncations).
Special Morphisms and Natural transformations
Mapping Cone
A mapping cone of a morphism in is a complex defined as with differentials given by
Theorem 3. The sequence is split in iff is null-homotopic.
This is a useful tool and a key ingredient in the triangulated structures on the homotopy category .
Special Morphisms
Definition 12. A morphism in is a quasi-isomorphism if is an isomorphism.
Theorem 4. is quasi-isomorphism is acyclic.
Example 1. If , then is a quasi-isomorphism, similarly if , then is a quasi-isomorphism.
Remarks 2.
If , there need not exist a quasi-isomorphism or o.o! In fact we can have .
If there exists quasi-isomorphism , there need not exist a quasi-isomorphism in the reversed direction.
Homotopy Equivalences
Definition 13.
A morphism is called a homotopy equivalence if there exists a morphism in the reversed direction such that and . Any such beta is called a homotopy inverse of .
is called contractible if , or iff is a homotopy equivalence.
Theorem 5. is a homotopy equivalence is contractible.
Remarks 3. If is a homotopy equivalence, then is also a quasi-isomorphism. If a complex is contractible, then is acyclic (exact).
Example 2. A short exact sequence of -modules can be viewed as a complex which is acyclic. In this way, is contractible iff is split exact.
Remarks 4. The homotopy category is the category whose objects are the complexes and morphisms are homotopy classes of morphisms in . It could also be defined as a localization with respect to homotopy equivalences, .
Theorem 6. For a functor , the following are equivalent
If , then .
If is a homotopy equivalence, then is a homotopy equivalence.
In this case we say preserves homotopy.
Example 3. , we have and preserve homotopy.
Special Natural Transformations
There are some standard isomorphisms and evaluation morphisms.
Definition 14.
Commutativity
Associativity
Swap where there is a sign change .
Adjunction where there is a sign change .
Evaluation Morphisms
Remarks 5. A derived version of bi-duality is important in at least two cases
, , dualizing complex, we have Grothendieck duality.
, , derived reflexive complexes.
Homothety evaluation morphism
Definition 15. Homothety evaluation morphism
Tensor Evaluation
Exercise.
Homomorphism Evaluation
Homomorphism evaluation There are some conditions under which is an isomorphism. For example if is a bounded complex of finitely presented -modules and is a complex of injective -modules.
Sample Application of Homomorphism Evaluation
Recall that a projective module is flat.
Theorem 7. If is a finitely presented flat -module, then is projective.
This is exercise 1.4.17.
Proof. Let be a surjection, we need to show that is surjective. As is faithfully injective (divisible) abelian group, we have is surjective is injective. By hom evaluation and commutativity, the latter is ◻
Homological Algebra

There is a fact, an -complex is projective iff it is a contractible complex of projective -modules.
Definition 16. An -complex is semi-projective (dg-projective) if the total Hom functor preserves surjective quasi-isomorphisms.
We are not insisting on preserving all surjective morphisms, we only need it to send surjective q-isoms to surjective q-isoms.
The two main examples are
Example 4. A contractible complex of projective modules is semi-projective.
Example 5. A bounded below complex of projective -modules is semi-projective.
There are many ways to characterize these complexes,
Theorem 8. For an -complex , the following are equivalent
is semi-projective.
is exact and preserve q-isoms
For any chain map and surjective quasi-isomorphism , we can lift the map to .

Any exact sequence of complexes where is acyclic, splits.
is a complex of projective modules and the functor preserves acyclic complexes.
Proposition 5. The semi-projectivity satisfy two out of three property. If in an exact sequence of complexes of projective modules, two out of the three complexes are semi-projective, then the third is also semi-projective.
Definition 17. An -complex is semi-free if it is graded free on a basis of homogeneous elements with such that
Example 6. A bounded below complex of free -modules is semi-free. with a basis for .
Here we see are cycles and indeed .
Proposition 6. A semi-free -complex is semi-projective.
Definition 18. A semi-projective resolution of an -complex is a q-isom from semi-projective complex to , .
Sketch of the Construction
Here is a sketch of the construction, given an -complex , then we take to be a set of homogeneous generators of , take to be a graded free -module that surjects on a basis that surjects onto , , .
Do the same to , adjust accordingly.
Theorem 9. Let be an -complex, there exists a semi-projective resolution , moreover
One can choose surjective and with for .
One can choose with for .
If is left noetherian and is bounded below and degree-wise finitely generated, then can be chosen degree-wise finitely generated with for .
Definition 19. An -complex is semi-injective if is exact and map surjective quasi-isomorphisms to injective quasi-isomorphisms.
Example 7. A contractible complex of injective -modules is semi-injective.
Example 8. Bounded above complex of injective -modules is semi-injective.
Proposition 7. If is semi-projective then for a faithfully injective -module , is semi-injective.
Definition 20. A semi-injective resolution of an -complex is a q-isom from to a semi-injective complex , .
Theorem 10. For every -complex , there exists a semi-injective resolution . Moreover
One can choose the map to be injective and with for .
One can choose with for .
Definition 21. An -complex is semi-flat if preserves injective q-isoms.
Remarks 6. This is equivalent to asking that it preserves injective q-isoms and also preserve exactness.
Example 9. A contractible complex of flat -modules is semi-flat.
Example 10. A bounded below complex of flat -modules is semi-flat.
There are some similar characterizations.
Proposition 8. For an -complex , the following are equivalent
is semi-flat.
is exact and preserves q-isoms.
The character complex is semi-injective, where is a faithfully injective -module.
is a complex of exact modules and the functor preserves acyclic complexes.
Corollary 1. A semi-projective complex is semi-flat.
Homotopy Categories
Definition 22. The homotopy category has the same object as the category of complexes , and the morphisms are homotopy classes of morphisms in , i.e.
There is a canonical quotient functor which maps and . The connection
Proposition 9. Let be a morphism in ,
is zero iff is null-homotopic.
is an isomorphism iff is a homotopy equivalence.
Proposition 10. A complex is zero in iff is contractible.
Theorem 11. The homotopy category with is a triangulated category with the distinguished triangles being those isomorphic to
The homotopy category has a universal property whose special case is useful.
Theorem 12. Let be a functor that preserves homotopy, then there is a unique functor that makes the following diagram commute 
There is an important consequence of splitting,
Proposition 11. Let be semi-projective, a q-isom. There exists a with .
Corollary 2. A q-isom of semi-projective complexes is a homotopy equivalence.
The Derived Category and Derived Functors
The derived category is the localization of the homotopy category with respect to the class of quasi-isomorphisms. It is the category whose objects are the complexes and morphisms are homotopy classes of morphisms in .
There exists a universal functor which maps q-isoms to isoms.
The universality of the functor gives, for every functor that maps q-isoms to isoms, there is a unique functor that makes the following diagram commute 
Moreover,
and are triangulated.
If and are triangulated, then so is .
Construction of Derived Category (Sketch)
The objects of are where we invert quasi-isomorphisms, the morphisms (right fractions here) look like the diagrams one can also use left fractions.
Some creepy notations used in the book:
homotopy equivalence relation in ,
quasi-isomorphism relation in ,
isomorphism relation in .
homotopy equivalence relation in , isoms in .
Fact, where is a semi-projective resolution of . This tells us that the hom set is always a set.
Composition in
We define the composition rule as follows as sending
Triangulated Structure on
Definition 23. The distinguished triangles in are defined as the set of isomorphism closure in of .
The semi-projective resolution functor
Definition 24.
Every -complex has a semi-projective resolution .
The lifting properties of semi-projective complexes make into an endofunctor of the homotopy category , and is a natural transformation.
Derived Functors
Let be a functor, we can derive a functor by the universal property.
Definition 25. The total left derived functor is the unique functor that makes the diagram commute

Similarly we may define the right derived functor as
Remarks 7. maps q-isoms to isoms.

where if is a q-isom, this will force to be a q-isom.
Abstract Definition to Derived Functors
is object of a category where the morphisms are natural transformations.
Theorem 13. is the terminal object in .
Remarks 8.
One can also derive contravariant functors by switching the roles of and .
One can also derive functors in multiple variables.
Now we turn to the most important example, tensor and hom.
Derived Tensor and Hom
Recall is a -algebra.
Definition 26.
The Hom functor preserves homotopy and induces a functor We can right derive this functor to get the derived Hom functor To compute its value
Similarly we can derive the total tensor functor we write its derived version as
Remarks 9. In fact it suffices to let or to be a semi-flat resolution.
Definition 27. Let and be -complexes, note that we used homology notation, in cohomology notation it will be denoted as instead. Similarly
Standard Isomorphisms in
Recall that we have commutativity, associativity, swap, and adjunction isomorphisms in .
Proposition 12. These natural isomorphisms exists in derived versions in .
Derived Associativity
The ordinary associativity isomorphism is is a natural isomorphism of functors, and it lives naturally in ,
Now we look at 
This is a natural isom of functors
Boundedness and Finiteness Conditions
We want to know where do we have homology in the and functors. There are general lowerbounds for non-vanishing of and ,
For the derived Hom functor, we have
For the derived tensor product, we have
Remarks 10. Upper bounds on non-vanishing of and are closely related to homological dimensions of complexes, which will be discussed in later sections.
In some cases one even has attached to to each of the in the above, which means all the homology module are finitely generated.
Homological Dimensions
Remarks 11. In order to avoid the confusion caused by using sup and inf in homology and cohomology, I will introduce the following notations, the left bound, the right bound, Note that their definition varies depending on what index convention you use. And we have the co-left bound, co-right bounds
Definition 28. an -complex, define which lies in .
Remarks 12.
can be acyclic (exact) complex ,
If does not have a semi-projective with for , then the set is empty then by definition .
This definition is sensitive on shift, i.e. note that is always left shift whatever index convention you use.
If is a semi-projective complex, then there is a quasi-isom there exists some isom in . so only depends on the isomorphism. Class of in .
If is an -module, viewed as a complex , then is the usual projective dimension of a module.
Remarks 13. It may be tempting to define the projective dimension as the projective dimension of the complex viewed as an element in the abelian category , since the category is abelian with enough projective. But is not a projective object in the abelian category of complexes as it is not acyclic, in fact if we use this as the definition, we have And it should be warned that this definition is not what we are doing here.
Example 11. be an -module with projective resolution. Let be a central element, define to be the complex then .
Here we have a complex 
,
, ,
Theorem 14. For and , the following are equivalent
for all -complex
and for all
For some (equivalently every) semi-projective resolution , the -module is projective.
Furthermore,
Remarks 14. , we have an inequality
Theorem 15. Let be left Noetherian and , Furthermore, if , then
Similarly we can define injective dimension
Minimal semi-injective resolution
Theorem 16. For a semi-injective -complex , the following are equivalent
Every q-isom is an isom in .
Every q-isom has a left inverse in .
The only acyclic sub-complex is .
For each , is an essential subset of .
If any of the above holds, then is a minimal semi-injective -complex. A minimal semi-injective resolution of is a q-isom with minimal semi-injective.
If you have a minimal semi-injective resolution, you can read off the injective dimension.
Theorem 17. If is a minimal semi-injective resolution, then the injective dimension
Example 12. For , is a minimal semi-injective resolution of ,
Flat Dimension
Definition 29. The flat dimension of an -complex is
is defined using semi-flat resolution of .
controls the homological supremum of .
Theorem 18. , we always have and equality holds if is left Noetherian and .
Flat injective duality
, faithfully injective -module, now .
Injective dimension .
provided that is left Noetherian and .
Evaluation Morphisms In Derived Category
Recall that there were the biduality, homothety, tensor evaluation, homomorphism evaluation morphisms. The point is that, these natural morphisms exists in derived versions.
Derived Tensor Evaluation
let , ,
Theorem 19. The crazy thing is that, is usually an isomorphism o.o! For example for if is left Noetherian and one of the following holds
with , ( is a perfect -complex ).
.
Derived Homomorphism Evaluation
Theorem 20. is an isom in if for example is right Noetherian and one of the following holds
( is a perfect -complex ).
.
Dualizing Complexes and Iwanaga-Gorenstein Categories
Derived biduality
Here
To simplify things, we make the blanket assumption in this section: noetherian, and projective as a -algebra (module).
Theorem 21. The biduality morphism is an isomorphism in if and .
Definition 30. An - complex is dualizing for if
is degree-wise finitely generated over and .
The injective dimensions , . (because the boundedness
Example 13. If is a field, then is dualizing for . Let be a finite dimensional -algebra, injective -module, look at

Theorem 22. Let be a dualizing complex for . For is an isomorphism in .
Theorem 23 (Grothendieck Duality). There is an adjoint equivalence of triangulated categories unit and counit are biduality. It restricts to
Definition 31. We introduce the following notations for the categories of complexes
Definition 32. An -complex is derived reflexive if
The complex itself has to be .
Bi-duality .
Denote
Theorem 24. There is an adjoint equivalence of triangulated categories, where and sits inside the arrows.
Definition 33. is Iwanaga-Gorenstein if and , i.e. injective dimension of is finite as both a left and right module.
Theorem 25. The following are equivalent
is Iwanaga-Gorenstein.
Every flat and -module has finite injective dimension.
Every injective and -module has finite flat dimension.
Theorem 26. The following are equivalent
is Iwanaga-Gorenstein.
is a dualizing complex for .
has a dualizing complex with projective dimension finite over both and , i.e. and .
Now let be a dualizing complex, look at the adjoint functors The unit is an isom if is an isom, and the co-unit is an isom if is an isom.
We introduce the following notations
note that , .
Theorem 27 (Foxby-Sharp Equivalence). There is an adjoint equivalence of triangulated categories 
Proposition 13. Let be a dualizing complex for , then
Theorem 28. The following are equivalent
is Iwanaga-Gorenstein
and
has a dualizing complex and and
has a dualizing complex and
has a dualizing complex and
Theorem 29. If is a dualizing complex for , and an -complex of finite flat dimension, then
Homological Invariants in Commutative Algebra
Definition 34. For , is the residue field of at . For ,
Remarks 15. For an -module one has the classical support One always have with equality if is finitely generated.
Theorem 30. For , one has (i.e. acyclic, exact).
Support Formula
Theorem 31. For , one has i.e. iff .
Cosupport Formula
Theorem 32. For one has In particular, in iff .
Koszul Complex
be an element of a ring, the Koszul complex is where since we are using homology indexing, the degrees are , for cohomology index, it should be instead and the definitions related with it will need to be changed. For a sequence of elements , the Koszul complex is
Depth and width
Let be an ideal of , , the -depth of is defined as
One always have an inequality and equality holds in some cases.
The -width is defined as Similarly we have and equality holds for example if and . Thus for a finitely generated -module , the -width of is .
Remarks 16. Say , is a finitely generated -module, the maximal length of an -regular sequence contained in the ideal , which is finite.
Example 17. Let . which in . The -depth of is .
Depth and flat dimension
Definition 35. For a local ring and , we define and width to be
How does depth and width interact with and ?
You can always compute
provided that and .
The Auslander-Buchsbaum Formula
Set be a local ring, . If , then
Proof. Set in the depth-width formula for . There are versions of the equalities in the Auslander-Buchsbaum formula for complexes over non-local rings. ◻
Theorem 33. is any commutative noetherian ring, is an -complex. If , then
Width and Injective Dimension
You can always compute
provided that and .
Theorem 34 (The Bass Formula). , if , then This is Chouinand Formula for injective dimension.
Mathis Duality
Let be local, the injective hull of the -module , then
Theorem 35. Let be local and complete, , for example , then there are equivalences of triangulated categories
Here is the full subcategory of whose objects satisfy that each homology module is finitely generated / artinian / has finite length. Moreover, if is a normalized dualizing complex for (i.e. ), then Grothendieck duality restricts to Mathis duality, i.e. for .
The Derived Category of A Commutative Noetherian Ring
Let be an ideal and one can look at an obvious sequence of quotients
Definition 36. The -torsion functor it finds all things that gets killed by some powers of .
Derived -torsion
Theorem 36. Let be an ideal and . One can compute as where is a dualizing complex for . Compare biduality which is always an isomorphism.
In local algebra, this has a particularly nice interpretation.
Definition 38. The Krull dimension of is the dimension of as a poset.
Definition 39. A dualizing complex for is normalized if the supremum of is equal to the dimension of , .
Theorem 37 (Local Duality Theorem). If is local, is a normalized dualizing complex for , then for ,
Proposition 14. an ideal and .
Theorem 38. They are commutative up to natural isomorphisms, diagrams of equivalences of triangulated categories 

Definition 40. is Gorenstein if is Iwanaga-Gorenstein i.e. for each .
Theorem 39. The following are equivalent
is Iwanaga-Gorenstein,
is Gorenstein with ,
has finite Krull-dimension and
has a dualizing complex and the Auslander category .
has a dualizing complex and .
has a dualizing complex and .
has a dualizing complex and .
Theorem 40. A complex is derived reflexive iff
Theorem 41. The following are equivalent
is Gorenstein,
For every acyclic complex of projective -modules also is acyclic for every projective -module .
For every acyclic complex of injective -modules, also , is acyclic for every injective .
For every acyclic complex of flat -modules, also is acyclic for every injective -module .
Theorem 42. For a local ring the following are equivalent
is regular,
,
,
Definition 41. is regular if is regular for every prime .
Theorem 43. The following are equivalent
is regular,
Every acyclic complex of projective modules is contractible,
Every acyclic complex of injective modules is contractible,
Every complex of injective -modules is semi-injective,
Every complex of projective -modules is semi-projective,
Every complex of finitely generated projective -modules is semi-projective.