Auslander's formula and correspondence for exact categories (Q2131755)

The paper under review is a significant contribution to the theory of exact categories establishing an Auslander's formula for exact categories, that is for the extension-closed subcategories of abelian categories. There are many reasons to consider exact categories, one of them is their crucial role in relative homological algebra. Classic examples of exact structures in representation theory are the class of Gorenstein projective modules and the subcategory of modules admitting a filtration by standard modules over a quasi-hereditary algebra. Auslander's formula states that any module category of a finite-dimensional algebra \(\Lambda\) is equivalent to the category of coherent functors \(\operatorname{mod}(\operatorname{mod}(\Lambda))\) modulo the Serre subcategory of all effaceable functors. This formula is a powerful tool to study the module category \(\operatorname{mod}(\Lambda)\) via \(\operatorname{mod}(\operatorname{mod}(\Lambda))\). As an example, when \(\Lambda\) is of finite representation type \(\operatorname{mod}(\operatorname{mod}(\Lambda))\) is equivalent to the module category of an Auslander algebra. Moreover, finite-dimensional algebras of finite representation type are up to Morita equivalence in one to one correspondence with Auslander algebras. This correspondence is known as Auslander correspondence providing a way to express representation finiteness using homological algebra. Given an exact category \(\mathcal{E}\), the authors introduce the full subcategory \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) of \(\operatorname{mod}(\mathcal{E})\) consisting of functors that admit a projective representation. This is necessary for this setup because \(\operatorname{mod}(\mathcal{E})\) is independent of the exact structure on \(\mathcal{E}\). The Auslander formula for exact categories, established by the authors, reads as follows: \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})/\operatorname{eff}(\mathcal{E})\simeq \mathcal{E}\), where \(\operatorname{eff}(\mathcal{E})\) is the torsion part of a torsion theory in \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\). The authors show that \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) has nicer homological properties than the exact category \(\mathcal{E}\): for example, \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) has enough projective objects and it has global dimension at most two, and it is abelian whenever \(\mathcal{E}\) is abelian. Furthermore, the authors introduce the concept of an Auslander exact category and prove that Auslander exact categories are precisely those exact categories of the form \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) for some exact category \(\mathcal{E}\). The authors study how certain properties in \(\mathcal{E}\) manifest in \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\). For example, \(\mathcal{E}\) has enough projectives precisely when the Auslander's formula is a particular case of a recollment of exact categories involving \(\mathcal{E}\) and \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\). Having enough injectives is related to \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) being a generalization of a module category of an Auslander algebra. In particular, in such a case, they obtain generalizations of the classical Auslander correspondence for exact categories. The authors also characterise \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) for exact structures on a fixed idempotent complete additive category. As an application, they obtain a bijection between the exact structures on an abelian category and certain resolving subcategories of \(\operatorname{mod}(\mathcal{A})\). Explicit examples of \(\operatorname{mod}_{\operatorname{adm}}(\mathcal{E})\) are given for example when \(\mathcal{E}\) is the category of maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules of an order over a commutative Cohen-Macaulay local ring.