The size of a stratifying system can be arbitrarily large (Q2681057)

The concept of stratifying system was introduced by \textit{K. Erdmann} and \textit{C. Sáenz} [Commun. Algebra 31, No. 7, 3429--3446 (2003; Zbl 1030.16007)] to generalise the exceptional sequence of hereditary algebra. Let \(A\) be a basic finite-dimensional algebra over an algebraically closed field. A \textit{stratifying system of size \(t\)} (where \(t\in\mathbb{N}\cup\{\infty\}\)) is a set of finitely presented \(A\)-modules \(\{\theta_1,\theta_2,\dots,\theta_t\}\) with a linear order \(\leq\) such that \(\Hom_A(\theta_j,\theta_i)=0\) if \(i<j\) and \(\mathrm{Ext}^1_A(\theta_j,\theta_i)=0\) if \(i\leq j\). It was shown in [\textit{P. Cadavid} and \textit{E. do N. Marcos}, J. Algebra Appl. 14, No. 6, Article ID 1550093, 10 p. (2015; Zbl 1317.16008)] that the size of every stratifying system of a hereditary algebra \(H\) is bounded by \(\mathrm{rk}(K_0(H))\), where \(K_0(H)\) is the Grothendieck group of \(H\). However, this is not true for an arbitary algebra \(A\), and it was conjectured that there exists an upper-bound for the size of a stratifying system which was a function of \(\mathrm{rk}(K_0(A))\). In the paper under review, the authors show that this conjecture is false by proving that there exists a family of algebras having a stratifying system of infinite size. Moreover, they construct a family of finite stratifying systems whose size cannot be linearly bounded by \(\mathrm{rk}(K_0(A))\).