An exceptional collection for Khovanov homology (Q894951)

The paper under review provides a general method for lifting an idempotent decomposition of the Temperley-Lieb algebra \(\mathrm{TL}_n\) to a decomposition of its categorification (in the sense of Khovanov). In more details, each idempotent \(p\) in \(\mathrm{TL}_n\) is lifted to a chain complex \(P\) of Khovanov's categorification such that the idempotent equation \(p\cdot p=p\) lifts to \(P\otimes P\cong P\). Along the way, the paper also provides new skein-theoretic expressions for the decomposition of the Temperley-Lieb algebra, the categories which determine Khovanov homology are extended to differential graded categories, some morphism spaces are computed, and a complete decomposition of these categories is introduced. Applications of these results include semi-orthogonal decompositions of categorifications of Temperley-Lieb algebras and Postnikov decompositions of all Khovanov tangle invariants.