On weight complexes, pure functors, and detecting weights (Q1998973)

The paper concerns``weight structures'' on triangulated categories. These superficially resemble \(t\)-structures, but there is a reversal in the kinds of decomposition. A triangle \(LM \to M \to RM \to LM[1]\) is a weight decomposition triangle if \(LM\) lies in a subcategory \(C_{\le 0}\) that is contained in its own positive shift \(C_{\le 0}[1]\). These weight structures were independently defined by the author of this paper in [J. \(K\)-Theory 6, No. 3, 387--504 (2010; Zbl 1303.18019)] and by \textit{D. Pauksztello}, who calls them ``co-\(t\)-structures'' [Cent. Eur. J. Math. 6, No. 1, 25--42 (2008; Zbl 1152.18009)]. The term ``weight'' here originates with the definition by Deligne of ``weight filtrations'' in cohomology (see e.g.,~[``Poids dans la cohomologie des variétés algébriques'', Canad. Math. Congress 1, 79--85 (1975)]). These filtrations were derived from structures at the level of Chow motives [\textit{H. Gillet} and \textit{C. Soulé}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 478, 127--176 (1996; Zbl 0863.19002)]. The ``weight structures'' discussed in this paper include a generalization of these prior weight structures to Voevodsky's derived categories of motives, among other applications. In this paper, after some preliminaries, including a very helpful overview of the technicalities of ``weight structures'' in section 1.2, in this work, the idea of a ``weight complex'' is developed. This is done in section 1.3. The idea is: a weight complex of an object \(M\) amounts to a \(\mathbb Z\)-indexed sequence of compatible maps \(M_{\le i} \to M\) such that \(M_{\le i}\) lies in the appropriate part of the weight structure: \(C_{\le i}\). Associated to this filtration, there are associated graded parts \(M_i\) and the collection of these is termed a \textit{weight Postnikov tower} of the object \(M\). This generalizes to an arbitrary weight structure a construction of [loc. cit.]. While an object may have many different weight Postnikov towers, a pleasing result of here (Parts of Proposition 1.3.4) show that the associated graded part of the Postnikov tower is unique up to an appropriate notion of homotopy, as one might hope. Section 2 of the paper is concerned with ``pure functors'', i.e., those functors that depend only on the weight-\(0\) part of an object. These functors, as is observed in section 4, generalize ordinary (co)homology theories in \(G\)-equivariant stable homotopy theory. Some attention is dedicated to conditions under which one can detect whether the weight-\(n\) part of an object is trivial by using pure functors. This is for application to [\textit{M. Bondarko} and \textit{G. Tabuada}, Doc. Math. 22, 45--66 (2017; Zbl 1390.14010)]. Section 2.3 discusses the special, but common, case of ``smashing weight structures'' that are compatible with coproducts, and a long list of desirable properties is established in Proposition 2.3.2. Section 3 is devoted to techniques for constructing weight structures with a given heart (the heart being defined analogously to the heart of a \(t\)-structure). A substantial result in this section is Theorem 3.2.3, that constructs a weight structure on a triangulated category \(C\) based on a small connective subcategory of compact generators \(\mathcal P\) for \(C\). In this construction, the objects of \(\mathcal P\) are weight-\(0\) objects and the representable pure cohomological functors are identified. Section 4 discusses applications of the theory to the triangulated categories of \(G\)-spectra. In Section 4.1, weight structures are produced on triangulated categories of \(G\)-spectra when \(G\) is a compact Lie group. These structures are generated by equivariant spheres, and the results of section 3 are applied. Among several results obtained in this context is the following pleasant observation: the pure cohomology functors are the ordinary cohomology theories with Mackey functor coefficients. In section 4.2, the scope narrows to non-equivariant stable homotopy theory: here the ``Postnikov towers'' of section 1 are shown to agree with cellular towers of e.g., [\textit{H. R. Margolis}, Spectra and the Steenrod algebra. Modules over the Steenrod algebra and the stable homotopy category. Amsterdam: Elsevier (North-Holland) (1983; Zbl 0552.55002)] Section 4.3 is brief and relates the weight structures considered for spectra here to standard \(t\)-structures for these categories through a concept of adjunction, which is defined elsewhere. Two appendices round out the paper. The first is dominated by a technical proof of a proposition from part 1 that had been deferred to the appendix for the sake of exposition. The second appendix contains technical results regarding a notion of ``weak homotopy equivalence'' that had previously been defined for articulating the sense in which Postnikov decompositions are unique. This is a highly detailed, dense and rich paper that, along with other papers by the same author, establishes an extremely general and powerful theory of weight structures. Owing to the sheer volume of definitions, propositions and prior results called on, the paper is not a gentle introduction to that theory. Nonetheless, it is not hard to read considering its subject matter and scope, and is likely to be an invaluable resource to anyone who wishes to use the theory of weight structures.