Derived decompositions of abelian categories. I (Q2046737)

A semi-orthogonal decomposition of a triangulated category \(\mathcal{D}\) is a pair of triangulated subcategories \((\mathcal{T},\mathcal{F})\) of \(\mathcal{D}\) such that \(\operatorname{Hom}_{\mathcal{D}}(\mathcal{T}, \mathcal{F})=0\) and that every object \(D\in \mathcal{D}\) admits a triangle \(T_D\rightarrow D\rightarrow F^D \rightarrow X_D[1]\) with \(T_D\in \mathcal{T}\) and \(F^D\in \mathcal{F}\). This notion has appeared under different names in the literature. Namely, as hereditary torsion pair in [\textit{A. Beligiannis, I. Reiten}, Mem. Am. Math. Soc., No. 883, 207 p. (2007; Zbl 1124.18005)], or as Bousfield localizations in [\textit{A. Neeman}, Annals of Mathematics Studies, 148, 449 p. (2001; Zbl 0974.18008)]. Let \(*\in \{b,+,-,\emptyset\}\). The aim of the article under review is to find a way to construct semi-orthogonal decompositions for the derived category \(\mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{A} )\) of an abelian category \(\mathcal{A}\). To achieve this, the authors study \(\mathcal{D}^{*}\)-decompositions of \(\mathcal{A}\). A \(\mathcal{D}^{*}\)-decomposition of \(\mathcal{A}\) is a pair of classes \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) in \(\mathcal{A}\) that satisfies the following conditions: (1) \(\mathcal{X}\) and \(\mathcal{Y}\) are abelian subcategories such that the natural inclusions in \(\mathcal{A}\) induce fully faithful functors \(\mathcal{D}^*(i): \mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{X})\rightarrow \mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{A})\) and \(\mathcal{D}^*(j):\mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{Y})\rightarrow \mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{A})\); (2) \(\operatorname{Hom}_{\mathcal{D}^* (\mathcal{A})} (X,Y[n])=0\) \(\forall X\in \mathcal{X}\), \(\forall Y\in \mathcal{Y}\) and \(\forall n\in \mathbb{Z}\); and (3) every \(M \in \mathcal{D}^*(\mathcal{A})\) admits a triangle \(X\rightarrow M\rightarrow Y\rightarrow X[1]\) with \(X\in\mathcal{X}\) and \(Y\in\mathcal{Y}\). It is worth noting that a \(\mathcal{D} ^*\)-decomposition with \(*=b\) is called a derived decomposition. It turns out that if \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) is a pair of classes of \(\mathcal{A}\) satisfying (1) and such that \((\operatorname{Im}(\mathcal{D}^*(i)), \operatorname{Im}(\mathcal{D}^*(j)))\) is a semi-orthogonal decomposition, then \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) is a \(\mathcal{D}^*\)-decomposition. Moreover, the converse is true in case \(\mathcal{A}\) is an AB4 and AB4* category. To state the main result of the article under review, we need to introduce the following notation and definition. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an abelian category. Given \(\mathcal{Z}\subseteq \mathcal{A}\), define \(\mathcal{Z}^{\bot}\) as the class of objects \(A\in \mathcal{A}\) such that \(\operatorname{Ext}_{\mathcal{A}}^{i}(\mathcal{Z}, A)=0\) \(\forall i\geq 0\), define \(^{\bot}\mathcal{Z}\) in a dual way. A complete Ext-orthogonal pair of \(\mathcal{A}\) is a pair \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) of abelian subcategories of \(\mathcal{A}\) such that \(\mathcal{X}= {}^{\bot}\mathcal{Y}\), \(\mathcal{Y}=\mathcal{X}^{\bot}\) and that every \(A\in \mathcal{A}\) admits an exact sequence \(0 \rightarrow Y_A \rightarrow X_A \rightarrow A \rightarrow Y^{A} \rightarrow X^{A} \rightarrow 0 .\) It should be noted that in this context such exact sequence is unique up to isomorphism for every \(A\in \mathcal{A}\). It is worth mentioning that complete Ext-orthogonal pairs were presented in [\textit{H. Krause} and \textit{J. Šťovíček}, Adv. Math. 225, No. 5, 2341--2364 (2010; Zbl 1242.16007)], where they were used to study the telescope conjecture. It turns out that every \(\mathcal{D}^*\)-decomposition is a complete Ext-orthogonal pair. The main result of the paper gives sufficient conditions for a complete Ext-orthogonal pair to be a \(\mathcal{D}^{*}\)-decomposition. Namely, if every \(A \in \mathcal{A}\) admits an epimorphism \(P\rightarrow A\) with \(Y_P=0\) and a monomorphism \(A\rightarrow I\) with \(X^{I}=0\), then the complete Ext-orthogonal pair \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) is a \(\mathcal{D}^*\)-decomposition. Moreover, in case the category has enough projectives and injectives, one has that a pair \((\mathcal{X},\mathcal{Y})\) is a \(\mathcal{D}^*\)-decomposition if and only if it is complete Ext-orthogonal and \(X^I=0\) for all injective \(I\) and \(Y_P=0\) all projective \(P\). Lastly, the paper includes applications with homological ring epimorphisms, localizing subcategories, nonsingular rings, commutative noetherian rings, and a derived stratification of module categories over commutative noetherian rings of Krull dimension at most \(1\) is exhibited.