Duality categories (Q282439)

The author defines duality categories in an effort to generalise the notion of a duality group in the sense of Bieri and Eckmann. That is, a \textit{duality category} is a small category \(\mathcal C\) such that there exist a functor \(D:\mathcal C^{op}\to\mathbf{Ab}\), an integer \(n\) and a natural isomorphism \(\mathrm{Ext}^i_{\mathcal C-\mathrm{mod}}(\underline{\mathbb Z},-) \cong\mathrm{Tor}^{\mathcal C-\mathrm{mod}}_{n-i}(D,-)\), where \(\underline{\mathbb Z}\) denotes the constant functor. The author then develops a theory of duality categories and proves several results. In particular, he gives a sufficient condition for the poset of simplices of a finite simplicial complex to be a duality category. As a corollary, spherical Tits buildings are shown to be duality categories. Then he considers the case of \textit{duality functors} and \textit{Serre duality}. That is, a \(k\)-linear category \(\mathcal A\) satisfies a Serre duality if \(\mathcal A\) has a Serre functor \(S:\mathcal A\to\mathcal A\) such that there are natural isomorphisms \(\mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal A}(a,b)'\cong\mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal A}(b,Sa)\) for all objects \(a,b\in\mathcal A\), where \(V'=\mathrm{Hom}_k(V,k)\) for any \(k\)-vector space \(V\). Thus the author makes explicit a Serre duality for the category of perfect complexes of \(\mathcal C\)-modules. The author also illustrates these notions of duality in the categories of strict polynomial functors.