Brown representability for stable categories (Q4486873)

Stable categories were first obtained from module categories by dividing out by the equivalence relation that considers two morphisms, with the same domain and codomain, to be equivalent if their difference factors through a projective module. These show a quite rich type of abstract homotopy theory, initially considered by Hilton in the 1960s. Here a more general type of stable category is considered. Module categories are replaced by additive ones and projectives by a fixed pre-enveloping class of objects. This setting includes examples of categories of complexes of modules. The Brown representability theorem was originally developed for describing homotopy functors in algebraic topology. It uses categorical representability criteria suitably weakened to take the homotopy structure into account. In this beautifully written paper, the author gives an exposition of the theory, culminating in a proof of Brown representability for stable categories. He points out the link with work of \textit{A. Neeman} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 9, No. 1, 205-236 (1996; Zbl 0864.14008)].