Totally acyclic approximations (Q2046257)

Over an associative ring, an acyclic complex \(X\) of finitely generated projective modules is called \textit{totally acyclic} if the complex \(\mathrm{Hom}(X,P)\) remains acyclic for any finitely generated projective module \(P\). By a celebrated result of \textit{R.-O. Buchweitz} [Maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules and Tate cohomology. With appendices by Luchezar L. Avramov, Benjamin Briggs, Srikanth B. Iyengar and Janina C. Letz. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2021; Zbl 1505.13002)], over an Gorenstein ring (noetherian with finite injective dimension over itself on both sides), the homotopy category of (totally) acyclic complexes of finitely generated projective modules is equivalent, as a triangulated category, to the stable category of maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules. The class of maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules plays a major role in commutative algebra and in the representation theory of finite-dimensional algebras. Over a general (not necessarily Gorenstein) ring, the study of the homotopy category of totally acyclic complexes is of interest to many researchers since it resembles many homological properties found in the theory of Cohen-Macaulay modules over Gorenstein rings. In this paper the authors consider a surjective ring homomorphism \(\phi:Q\rightarrow R\) between noetherian rings, such that \(Q\) is Gorenstein and \(R\) as a \(Q\)-bimodule admits a finite resolution by modules that are projective on both sides (in case \(Q\) is a commutative local ring, this condition amounts to saying that \(R\) has finite projective dimension over \(Q\)). The idea is to approximate totally acyclic \(R\)-complexes by totally acyclic complexes over the nice ring \(Q\). In their main result the authors construct an adjoint pair \(S_{\phi}\colon \mathbf{K}_{\mathrm{tac}}(Q) \leftrightarrows\mathbf{K}_{\mathrm{tac}}(R)\colon T_{\phi}\), where \(S_{\phi}:=R\otimes_{Q}-\) and \(T_{\phi}\) is a modification of the forgetful functor. This result is further used to prove that the essential image of \(S_{\phi}\) is functorially finite in \(\mathbf{K}_{\mathrm{tac}}(R)\) (thus they obtain both left and right approximations of totally acyclic complexes). The constructions are accompanied by several examples.