Derived functors of graded theories (Q1300049)

This paper introduces the concept of graded theories. The motivating example is the homotopy category of finite one-point unions of spheres of dimension at least two. In general, a graded theory is a category \({\mathcal T}\) with a set of generating objects \({\mathcal S}\) such that the objects of \({\mathcal T}\) are the finite sums of the members of \({\mathcal S}\); the generating objects have integer degrees and there are further technical requirements. A graded theory has a category of models, which can also be described as an iterated comma category; in other words, it is given by a sequence of functors \((\Gamma^1,\Gamma^2,\ldots)\) such that the domain of \(\Gamma^{n+1}\) is the comma category of \(\Gamma^n\). Most of the paper is devoted to iterated comma categories \((\Gamma^1,\Gamma^2,\ldots)\) and the associated derived functors \(L_i \Gamma^{n+1}\). Under certain conditions there is a sequence \((N_1,N_2,\ldots)\) such that \(L_i \Gamma^{n+1}=0\) for \(i>N_{n+1}\); one says that the \(L_i \Gamma^{n+1}\) have a vanishing line. The results apply to the Blanc homology spectral sequence and the homotopy operation spectral sequence.