\(\tau\)-categories. I: Ladders. (Q2490349)

This is the first of three important papers on categories with almost split sequences, and their application to lattices over orders. In this first paper, the author introduces \(\tau\)-categories which allow a unified treatment of categories of representations of Cohen-Macaulay orders up to the critical dimension 2. In contrast to right almost split sequences \(\tau X\overset\nu\rightarrowtail\theta X@>\mu>>X\) for an isolated singularity in the sense of Auslander, it is not assumed that \(\nu\) is monic. So the generalized Auslander-Reiten sequences \(\tau X\to\theta X\to X\) in a \(\tau\)-category \(\mathcal C\) are not destroyed by passing to a quotient category \({\mathcal C}/[C]\) unless \(\theta X\in [C]\). The theory developed in this first paper is applied in the third one [Algebr. Represent. Theory 8, No. 5, 601-619 (2005; Zbl 1091.16012)], where it yields a purely combinatorial characterization of finite Auslander-Reiten quivers of classical orders. In the present paper, the ladder formalism, first introduced by Igusa and Todorov, is developed further, and a general Radical Layers Theorem for arbitrary \(\tau\)-categories is proved. This leads to a structure theorem for \(\tau\)-categories in terms of \(\tau\)-species. Invertible ladders play an important rôle for the structural analysis of categories of lattices over an order. Amazingly, it turns out that the two kinds of ladders needed for this investigation, allow a purely combinatorial description. For the purpose of representation-theory, the methods developed in the paper are very general and apply, in particular, to length-finite modules over Artinian rings, which are much easier to handle than lattices over orders.