Homotopy colimits in stable representation theory (Q388567)

The object of this paper is to study the problem of the existence and uniqueness of homotopy colimits in stable representation theory, that is, in the context of the quotient of an abelian category under the equivalence relation in which two morphisms \(f\) and \(g\) are equivalent if \(f-g\) factors through a projective object. To this end, general model-category theoretic methods cannot be applied since abelian categories do not admit, in general, the structure of a model category in which weak equivalences are the stable equivalences and the cofibrations are the monomorphisms. On the one hand, the author actually shows that if an abelian category \(C\) with enough projectives has any objects of positive finite projective dimension, then homotopy cofibres fail to exist in \(C\). Thus, such a \(C\) cannot have a model structure or a Waldhausen category structure with the desired cofibrations and weak equivalences. On the other hand, even when model category structures fail to exist, the author gives positive results for the existence of homotopy colimits. For instance, he shows reasonable conditions on \(C\) with enough projectives and injectives (i.e., that every projective object be injective) to assure that homotopy pushouts exist and are unique up to stable equivalence. Moreover, when every object can be embedded appropriately into a projective object, then geometric realization (which is a particular kind of homotopy colimits) is well-defined in \(C\). Some applications to Waldhausen \(K\)-theory and deformation theory in stable representation theory are finally described.