M-traces in (non-unimodular) pivotal categories (Q2139546)

The study of modified traces or m-traces has its roots in the search of nontrivial replacements for trace functions on non-semisimple ribbon and, more generally, pivotal categories. As was pointed by the authors, m-traces leads to interesting quantum invariants of links and 3-manifolds as well as applications in representation theory, Hopf algebras, Deligne categories and logarithmic conformal field theory. The main target of this paper is to generalize m-traces to the non-unimodular setting because until now the theory of m-traces was limited to unimodular categories or, in other words, categories in which the projective cover and injective hull of the unit object coincide. For a fixed pair of objects \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) in a pivotal, \({\mathbb K}\)-linear, locally-finite, tensor category \({\mathcal C}\), if \(I\) is a right ideal of \({\mathcal C}\), the auhors of this paper introduce the notion of a right \(\left(\alpha , \beta \right)\)-trace indexed by the objects of \(I\). As was proved in the paper under review, a \(\left(\alpha , \beta \right)\)-trace is a particular kind of m-trace given by a family of \({\mathbb K}\)-linear functions, \(\{t_V:\mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal C}(\alpha\otimes V,\beta\otimes V)\rightarrow {\mathbb K} \}_{V \in I},\) where \(V\) runs over all objects of \(I\), and such that certain partial trace and cyclicity properties hold (see subsection 3.2). In the case when \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are both the unit object of \({\mathcal C}\), the authors recover as a particular instance the m-traces defined in the unimodular setting. As was proved in Theorem 4.4, for a absolutely object \(P\) and objects \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) such that \(\mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal C}(\alpha, P)=\mathrm{Hom}_{\mathcal C}(P , \beta)={\mathbb K}\), there exists a right \(\left(\alpha , \beta \right)\)-trace on a certain (possibly empty) right ideal \(I_{\alpha}^{\beta}\). Furthermore, in Theorem 4.5, the authors prove that, if either \(\alpha\) or \(\beta\) is the unit object, this m-trace is unique up to scaling. For example, if \({\mathcal C}\) is an abelian category with enough projectives and \(P\) is assumed to be the projective cover of the unit object \({\mathbb I}\) and, if \(\alpha\) denotes a simple subobject of \(P\), then there exists a unique, nontrivial, right \((\alpha, {\mathbb I})\)-trace on the full subcategory of projective objects of \({\mathcal C}\) denoted by \(\mathrm{Proj}({\mathcal C})\). Then, as a consequence, a locally-finite, unimodular, pivotal category \({\mathcal C}\) with enough projectives has an m-trace on \(\mathrm{Proj} ({\mathcal C})\). Finally, the authors prove that there is a twisted Calabi-Yau structure on \(\mathrm{Proj} ({\mathcal C})\) for any pivotal, \({\mathbb K}\)-linear, locally-finite tensor category \({\mathcal C}\). As a consequence, \(\mathrm{Proj}({\mathcal C})\) admits a right Serre functor for any such category and every finite, \({\mathbb K}\)-linear, pivotal tensor category is equivalent to the category of finite-dimensional modules over a finite-dimensional Frobenius algebra.