Three real Artin-Tate motives (Q2161307)

This paper is motivated by motivic tensor-triangulated geometry, more explicitly, the study of the tt-geometry of Voevodsky's (tensor) triangulated category \(\mathrm{DM}^{\mathrm{gm}}(F; k)\) of geometric motives over a field \(F\), with coefficients \(k\). The authors focus on the tt-subcategory of geometric mixed Artin-Tate motives \(\mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (F; k)\) (generated by the Tate objects \(k(i)\) and the Artin motives \(M (E)\), for \(E/F\) a finite separable extension). Moreover, they take \(F\) to be a real closed field (\(\mathbb{R}\) for this review) and concentrate largely upon the most interesting coefficients, \(k = \mathbb{Z}/2\). This extends work of the second author [\textit{M. Gallauer}, Compos. Math. 155, No. 10, 1888--1923 (2019; Zbl 1498.14049)] for the case \(F\) algebraically closed. Their main result shows that the spectrum (in the sense of [\textit{P. Balmer}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 588, 149--168 (2005; Zbl 1080.18007)]) of \(\mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (\mathbb{R}; \mathbb{Z}/2)\) has six points, has Krull dimension two and has six irreducible closed subsets. They show that the lattice of closed subsets has fourteen points, hence \(\mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (\mathbb{R}; \mathbb{Z}/2)\) has precisely fourteen tt-ideals. The spectrum has three `maximal' irreducible closed subsets; the authors represent these as the support of explicit Artin-Tate motives, corresponding to the three motives of the title. Using these results, they determine the spectrum of \(\mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (\mathbb{R}; \mathbb{Z})\) (up to that of \(\mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (\mathbb{R}; \mathbb{Q})\), which is conjectured to be a point); the most interesting part of the structure arises from \(\mathbb{Z}/2\)-coefficients. These results hint at the richness of motivic tensor-triangulated geometry. The main result is proved using analogous results for the modular representation theory of the cyclic group \(C_2\). The relationship is provided by the profound result of Positselski [\textit{L. Positselski}, Mosc. Math. J. 11, No. 2, 317--402 (2011; Zbl 1273.12004)], which exploits the Milnor conjecture (as proved by Voevodsky). Namely, for \(\mathcal{A}\) the category of finite-dimensional \(k C_2\)-modules, the authors consider the category \(\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}}\) of filtered objects in \(\mathcal{A}\), equipped with its `minimal' exact structure; this is a Frobenius exact category. Positselski established the equivalence \[ \mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}}) \stackrel{\simeq} {\rightarrow} \mathrm{DATM}^{\mathrm{gm}} (\mathbb{R}; \mathbb{Z}/2), \] where the domain is the bounded derived category of the exact category \( \mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}}\). (The authors revisit some elements of the proof using alternative methods.) Although the equivalence is not known to preserve the tensor structure, it has sufficient structure to ensure that these tt-categories have the same spectrum, thus reducing to the study of the spectrum of \( \mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}}) \). The authors first identify the spectrum of the homotopy category \(\mathrm{K}_b (A)\) of bounded complexes in \(A\), which is a three point space (the more familiar spectrum of \(\mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A})\) identifies as a two-point open subset). They then analyse \(\mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}})\) by using two tt-functors, \(\mathrm{gr}\) and \(\widetilde{\mathrm{fgt}}\), from \(\mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}})\) to \(\mathrm{K}_b (A)\). The functor \(\mathrm{gr}\) is induced by passage to the associated graded whereas \(\widetilde{\mathrm{fgt}}\) is a `twisted' version of the functor induced by forgetting the filtration. An intricate and interesting analysis shows that these detect the six points of the spectrum of \(\mathrm{D}_b (\mathcal{A}^{\mathrm{fil}}_{\mathrm{ex}})\) and determines the topology.