Definable categories and \(\mathbb T\)-motives (Q1650213)

In a lecture in Mumbai in 2000 [\textit{N. Fakhruddin}, ``Notes of Nori's lectures on mixed motives'' (2000)] Nori constructed a version of a category of effective homological mixed motives. This construction uses a result (also by Nori) which states that to every quiver \(D\) and to every representation \(T\) of \(D\) over some ring \(R\), one can associate another representation \(\tilde T\) of \(D\) (in a different category) which satisfies some universal property. The main result of the present paper is an ``even more universal'' version of that result: To every quiver \(D\), a universal representation \(\Delta: D \to \text{Ab}(D)\) is associated, and from this \(\Delta\), one can then recover Nori's \(\tilde T\) for any representation \(T\) of \(D\). Here, universality of \(\Delta\) means that any other representation \(T: D \to \mathcal{A}\) (where \(\mathcal{A}\) is an abelian category) factors through \(\Delta\) (where the induced functor \(F: \text{Ab}(D) \to \mathcal{A}\) is exact and -- as such -- unique up to equivalence). In general, the functor \(F\) need not be faithful. However, one can ``quotient \(\mathcal{A}\) by the kernel of \(F\)'', obtaining \(F = F_T \circ \pi: \text{Ab}(D) \twoheadrightarrow \mathcal{A}(T) \to \mathcal{A}\) where \(F_T\) is faithful. The composition \(\tilde T := \pi \circ \Delta: D \to \mathcal{A}(T)\) now satisfies Nori's universality property: If \(T\) factors through any other faithful exact functor \(G: \mathcal{B} \to \mathcal{A}\), then \(F_T\) factors through \(G\), too. More precisely, Nori's original result works using \(R\)-linear categories (for some ring \(R\)). There is also an \(R\)-linear version of the main result of the present paper, so that one indeed gets back Nori's result. The paper also gives descriptions of \(\text{Ab}(D)\) and of \(\mathcal{A}(T)\) in terms of definable categories.