Protoadditive functors, derived torsion theories and homology (Q2341557)

The protoadditive functors studied in the paper under review are natural generalizations of the classical notion of an additive functor between additive categories. Recall that a functor between additive categories is additive when this functor preserves bi-products. The authors consider functors between pointed protomodular categories, which are categories where we can characterize the middle term of every split short exact sequence by using a generalized notion of semi-direct product. The authors precisely say that a functor between pointed protomodular categories is protoadditive when this functor preserves the split short exact sequences. The authors study the properties of protoadditive functors associated to homological categories and semi-abelian categories, which are natural generalizations of the notion of an abelian category. Recall simply that a category is semi-abelian when this category is exact in the Barr sense, pointed and protomodular (as opposed to abelian categories which are exact and additive) and that many standard results of classical homological algebra remain valid in the context of semi-abelian categories. The authors notably prove that a protoadditive reflector associated to a torsion-free subcategory of a homological category induces a chain of derived torsion theories in the categories of higher extensions that generalize Galois structures of higher central extensions previously considered in semi-abelian homological algebra. They use this result to establish that such protoadditive torsion-free reflectors admit non-abelian derived functors which have an explicit description in terms of higher Hopf formulae.