These lecture notes were prepared for the workshop ``Algebraic Geometry: Presentations by Young Researchers'' in Snowbird, Utah, July 2004, and for the autumn school in Lukecin, Poland, September 2004. In six lectures I attempted to present a non-technical introduction to derived categories of sheaves on varieties, including some important results like:
-- the description of the derived category of P^n;
-- Serre duality;
-- the Bondal-Orlov result about derived categories of varieties with ample or antiample canonical class;
-- the Mukai-Bondal-Orlov-Bridgeland criterion for equivalence;
-- equivalences for K3 surfaces and abelian varieties;
-- invariance of Hochschild homology and cohomology under derived equivalence.
We introduce the notion of a quasi DG category, generalizing that of a DG category. To a quasi DG category satisfying certain additional conditions, we associate another quasi DG category, the quasi DG category of $C$-diagrams. We then show the homotopy category of the quasi DG category of $C$-diagrams has the structure of a triangulated category. This procedure is then applied to produce a triangulated category of mixed motives over a base variety.
We study perverse sheaves of categories their connections to classical algebraic geometry. We show how perverse sheaves of categories encode naturally derived categories of coherent sheaves on $\mathbb{P}^1$ bundles, semiorthogonal decompositions, and relate them to a recent proof of Segal that all autoequivalences of triangulated categories are spherical twists. Furthermore, we show that perverse sheaves of categories can be used to represent certain degenerate Calabi--Yau varieties.
In this paper we prove first a general theorem on semiorthogonal decompositions in derived categories of coherent sheaves for flat families over a smooth base. Based on the results of math.AG/0510670, we then show that the derived categories of coherent sheaves on flag varieties of classical type are generated by complete exceptional collections. Finally, we find complete exceptional collections in the derived categories of some homogeneous spaces of the symplectic groups of small rank.
Let $S$ be a scheme contained in $\mathbf{Sch}_{fppf}$. Let $\mathfrak{X}$ be a Noetherian separated algebraic space over $S$. In this paper, we interpret localizing subcategories of the derived category of $\mathfrak{X}$ by using subsets of $|\mathfrak{X}|$.
We construct an equivalence between the derived category of sheaves on an elliptic threefold without a section and a derived category of twisted sheaves (modules over an Azumaya algebra) on any small resolution of its relative Jacobian.
In these notes, an introduction to derived categories and derived functors is given. The main focus is the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on a smooth projective variety.
We discuss derived categories of coherent sheaves on algebraic varieties. We focus on the case of non-singular Calabi-Yau varieties and consider two unsolved problems: proving that birational varieties have equivalent derived categories, and computing the group of derived autoequivalences. We also introduce the space of stability conditions on a triangulated category and explain its relevance to these two problems.
Orlov's famous representability theorem asserts that any fully faithful exact functor between the bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves on smooth projective varieties is a Fourier-Mukai functor. In this paper we show that this result is false without the full faithfulness hypothesis.
We investigate the properties of relative analogues of admissible Ind, Pro, and elementary Tate objects for pairs of exact categories, and give criteria for those categories to be abelian. A relative index map is introduced, and as an application we deduce a description for boundary morphisms in the K-theory of coherent sheaves on Noetherian schemes.
We lift Grothendieck-Verdier-Spaltenstein's six functor formalism for derived categories of sheaves on ringed spaces over a field to differential graded enhancements. Our main tools come from enriched model category theory.
We use an idea of Rosenberg to prove a reconstruction theorem for abelian categories of alpha-twisted quasi-coherent sheaves on quasi-compact and quasi-separated schemes X when alpha is in the Brauer group of X. By applying the work of Toën on derived Azumaya algebras, we give a proof of Căldăraru's conjecture.
Under some assumptions we prove that the Deligne tensor product of categories of constructible perverse sheaves on pseudomanifolds X and Y is the category of constructible perverse sheaves on X\times Y. The Deligne external tensor product functor is identified with the geometrical external tensor product.
We remove the global quotient presentation input in the theory of windows in derived categories of smooth Artin stacks of finite type. As an application, we use existing results on flipping of strata for wall-crossing of Gieseker semi-stable torsion-free sheaves of rank two on rational surfaces to produce semi-orthogonal decompositions relating the different moduli stacks. The complementary pieces of these semi-orthogonal decompositions are derived categories of products of Hilbert schemes of points on the surface.
We consider categories of generalized perverse sheaves, with relaxed constructibility conditions, by means of the process of gluing $t$-structures and we exhibit explicit abelian categories defined in terms of standard sheaves categories which are equivalent to the former ones. In particular, we are able to realize perverse sheaves categories as non full abelian subcategories of the usual bounded complexes of sheaves categories. Our methods use induction on perversities. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to the two-strata case, but our results extend to the general case.
Using derived categories of equivariant coherent sheaves, we construct a categorification of the tangle calculus associated to sl(2) and its standard representation. Our construction is related to that of Seidel-Smith by homological mirror symmetry. We show that the resulting doubly graded knot homology agrees with Khovanov homology.
Let X and Y be smooth complex projective varieties. Orlov conjectured that if X and Y are derived equivalent then their motives M(X) and M(Y) are isomorphic in Voevodsky's triangulated category of geometrical motives with rational coefficients. In this paper we prove the conjecture in the case X is a K3 surface admitting an elliptic fibration (a case that always occurs if the Picard rank of X is at least 5) with finite-dimensional Chow motive. We also relate this result with a conjecture by Huybrechts showing that, for a K3 surface with a symplectic involution, the finite-dimensionality of its…
Let X be an algebraic variety with an action of an algebraic group G. Suppose X has a full exceptional collection of sheaves, and these sheaves are invariant under the action of the group. We construct a semiorthogonal decomposition of bounded derived category of G-equivariant coherent sheaves on X into components, equivalent to derived categories of twisted representations of the group. If the group is finite or reductive over the algebraically closed field of zero characteristic, this gives a full exceptional collection in the derived equivariant category. We apply our results to particular …
Using derived categories of equivariant coherent sheaves we construct a knot homology theory which categorifies the quantum sl(m) knot polynomial. Our knot homology naturally satisfies the categorified MOY relations and is conjecturally isomorphic to Khovanov-Rozansky homology. Our construction is motivated by the geometric Satake correspondence and is related to Manolescu's by homological mirror symmetry.
Let X be a quasi-compact and quasi-separated (not necessarily semiseparated) scheme. The category QcoX of all quasi-coherent sheaves of OX-modules has several diferent pure derived categories. Recently, categorical pure derived categories of X have been studied in more details. In this work, we focus on the geometrical purity and find replacements for geometrical pure derived categories of X.
We show how derived categories build bridges across the current mathematical mainstream, linking geometric and algebraic, commutative and noncommutative, local and global banks. Arches in these bridges are pieces of semiorthogonal decompositions of triangulated categories. To appear in the Proceedings of the ICM 2002 in Beijing.
We study the question when a category of ind-objects is abelian. Our answer allows a further generalization of the notion of weakly Tannakian categories introduced by the author. As an application we show that, under suitable conditions, the category of coherent sheaves on the product of two schemes with the resolution property is given by the Deligne tensor product of the categories of coherent sheaves of the two factors. To do this we prove that the class of quasi-compact and semi-separated schemes with the resolution property is closed under fiber products.
We consider categorical and geometric purity for sheaves of modules over a scheme satisfying some mild conditions, both for the category of all sheaves and for the category of quasicoherent sheaves. We investigate the relations between these four purities and compute a number of examples, in particular describing both the geometric and categorical Ziegler spectra for the category of quasicoherent sheaves over the projective line over a field.
The purpose of this paper is to develop an efficient computational model for Abelian categories of coherent sheaves over certain classes of varieties. These categories are naturally described as Serre quotient categories. Hence, our approach relies on describing general Serre quotient categories in a constructive way which leads to an efficient computer implementation.
We prove that the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves with proper support is equivalent to the category of locally-finite, cohomological functors on the perfect derived category of a quasi-projective scheme over a field. We introduce the notions of pseudo-adjoints and Rouquier functors and study them. As an application of these ideas and results, we extend the reconstruction result of Bondal and Orlov to Gorenstein projective varieties.
Let G be a reductive groups over an algebraically closed field k. Let P^{(i)} be associated parabolic subgroups, and X^{(i)}:=T^*G/P^i. The bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves on X^{(i)} are equivalent, but there is no canonical equivalence. By refining a construction from a previous paper, we construct a local system of categories over a topological space V^0_C, where these categories are assigned to different points in V^0_C. Natural equivalence functors between these categories are parameterized by homotopy classes of paths between the corresponding points.
Starting from certain perverse sheaves on an abelian variety, including the intersection cohomology sheaves of curves and smooth ample divisors, we construct a semisimple super-Tannakian category.
We consider the derived category of coherent sheaves on a complex vector space equivariant with respect to an action of a finite reflection group G. In some cases, including Weyl groups of type A, B, G_2, F_4, as well as the groups G(m,1,n), we construct a semiorthogonal decomposition of this category, indexed by the conjugacy classes of G. The pieces of this decompositions are equivalent to the derived categories of coherent sheaves on the quotient-spaces V^g/C(g), where C(g) is the centralizer subgroup of g in G. In the case of the Weyl groups the construction uses some key results about the…
We introduce new enhancements for the bounded derived category $D^b(Coh(X))$ of coherent sheaves on a suitable scheme $X$ and for its subcategory $Perf(X)$ of perfect complexes. They are used for translating Fourier-Mukai functors to functors between derived categories of dg algebras, for relating homological smoothness of $Perf(X)$ to geometric smoothness of $X,$ and for proving homological smoothness of $D^b(Coh(X)).$ Moreover, we characterize properness of $Perf(X)$ and $D^b(Coh(X))$ geometrically.
We define a deformation of our earlier link homologies for fundamental representations of sl_m. The deformed homology of a link is isomorphic to the deformed homology of the disjoint union of its components. Moreover, there exists a spectral sequence starting with the old homology and converging to this deformed homology.
In this paper we establish an equivalence between the category of graded D-branes of type B in Landau-Ginzburg models with homogeneous superpotential W and the triangulated category of singularities of the fiber of W over zero. The main result is a theorem that shows that the graded triangulated category of singularities of the cone over a projective variety is connected via a fully faithful functor to the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on the base of the cone. This implies that the category of graded D-branes of type B in Landau-Ginzburg models with homogeneous superpotential W …
We give a description of certain categories of equivariant coherent sheaves on Grothendieck's resolution in terms of the categorical affine Hecke algebra of Soergel. As an application, we deduce a relationship of these coherent sheaf categories to the categories of perverse sheaves considered in the work of Bezrukavnikov-Yun, generalizing results of Arkhipov-Bezrukavnikov. In addition, we deduce that the weak braid group action on sheaves of Riche and Bezrukavnikov-Riche can be upgraded to a strict braid group action.
In this paper we study the Witt groups of symmetric and anti-symmetric forms on perverse sheaves on a finite-dimensional topologically stratified space with even dimensional strata. We show that the Witt group has a canonical decomposition as a direct sum of the Witt groups of shifted local systems on strata. We compare this with another `splitting decomposition' for Witt classes of perverse sheaves obtained inductively from our main new tool, a `splitting relation' which is a generalisation of isotropic reduction. The Witt groups we study are identified with the (non-trivial) Balmer-Witt grou…
This is a mostly expository paper, intended to explain a very natural relationship between two a priori distinct notions appearing in the literature: Generic Vanishing in the context of vanishing theorems and birational geometry, and Perverse Coherent Sheaves in the context of derived categories. I describe homological and commutative algebra criteria for checking either condition, and then recall applications to geometric situations. A few new results, and especially new proofs, are included as well.
We give a generalization of the theorem of Bondal and Orlov about the derived categories of coherent sheaves on intersections of quadrics revealing its relation to projective duality. As an application we describe the derived categories of coherent sheaves on Fano 3-folds of index 1 and degrees 12, 16 and 18.
The paper contains general results on the uniqueness of a DG enhancement for triangulated categories. As a consequence we obtain such uniqueness for the unbounded categories of quasi-coherent sheaves, for the triangulated categories of perfect complexes, and for the bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves on quasi-projective schemes. If a scheme is projective then we also prove a strong uniqueness for the triangulated category of perfect complexes and for the bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves. These results directly imply that fully faithful functors from the bounded derive…
Starting point of the present work is a conjecture of F. Catanese which says that in the derived category of coherent sheaves on any rational homogeneous manifold G/P there should exist a complete strong exceptional poset and a bijection of the elements of the poset with the Schubert varieties in G/P such that the partial order on the poset is the order induced by the Bruhat-Chevalley order. The goal of this work is to provide further evidence for Catanese's conjecture, clarify some aspects of it and supply new techniques. In particular we prove a theorem on the derived categories of quadric b…
Our aim is to give a fairly complete account on the construction of compatible model structures on exact categories and symmetric monoidal exact categories, in some cases generalizing previously known results. We describe the close connection of this theory to approximation theory and cotorsion pairs. We also discuss the motivating applications with the emphasis on constructing monoidal model structures for the derived category of quasi-coherent sheaves of modules over a scheme.
We give a moduli-theoretic proof of the classical theorem of Gabriel, stating that a scheme can be reconstructed from the abelian category of quasi-coherent sheaves over it. The methods employed are elementary and allow us to extend the theorem to (quasi-compact and separated) algebraic spaces. Using more advanced technology (and assuming flatness) we also give a proof of the folklore result that the group of autoequivalences of the category of quasi-coherent sheaves consists of automorphisms of the underlying space and twists by line bundles. We apply our strategy to prove analogous statement…
Let k be an algebraically closed field of characteristic p>>0. Let $X\rightarrow Y$ be a symplectic resolution. There are two questions which motivates this work. One question is a construction of an action of a group on the category $\mathcal{C}:=D^b(Coh(X))$ - The bounded derived category of coherent sheaves of the symplectic resolution X. Second question is understanding equivalence functors between derived categories of coherent sheaves for different symplectic resolutions of Y. Let G/k be a reductive group. In this paper, we construct a local system on a topological space called $V^0_{\ma…
We introduce the notion of a "baric structure" on a triangulated category, as an abstraction of S. Morel's weight truncation formalism for mixed l-adic sheaves. We study these structures on the derived category D_G(X) of G-equivariant coherent sheaves on a G-scheme X. Our main result shows how to endow this derived category with a family of nontrivial baric structures when G acts on X with finitely many orbits. We also describe a general construction for producing a new t-structure on a triangulated category equipped with given t- and baric structures, and we prove that the staggered t-structu…
Let $X_N$ be the second infinitesimal neighborhood of a closed point in $N$-dimensional affine space. In this note we study $D^b(coh\, X_N)$, the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on $X_N$. We show that for $N\geq 2$ the lattice of triangulated subcategories in $D^b(coh\, X_N)$ has a rich structure (which is probably wild), in contrast to the case of zero-dimensional complete intersections. We also establish a relation between triangulated subcategories in $D^b(coh\, X_N)$ and universal localizations of a free graded associative algebra in $N$ variables. Our homological methods prod…
The paper is concerned with cohomology of the small quantum group at a root of unity, and of its upper triangular subalgebra, with coefficients in a tilting module. We relate it to a certain t-structure on the derived category of equivariant coherent sheaves on the Springer resolution, and to equivariant coherent IC sheaves on the nil-cone. The support of these cohomology is described in terms of cells in affine Weyl groups, and the basis in the Grothendieck group they provide is related to the Kazhdan-Lusztig basis, as predicted by J. Humphreys and V. Ostrik. The proof is based on earlier res…
We generalize the construction given in math.AG/0309435 of a "constant" t-structure on the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves $D(X\times S)$ starting with a t-structure on $D(X)$. Namely, we remove smoothness and quasiprojectivity assumptions on $X$ and $S$ and work with t-structures that are not necessarily Noetherian but are close to Noetherian in the appropriate sense. The main new tool is the construction of induced t-structures that uses unbounded derived categories of quasicoherent sheaves and relies on the results of \cite{AJS}. As an application of the "constant" t-structures…
The theory of integral, or Fourier-Mukai, transforms between derived categories of sheaves is a well established tool in noncommutative algebraic geometry. General "representation theorems" identify all reasonable linear functors between categories of perfect complexes (or their "large" version, quasi-coherent sheaves) on schemes and stacks over some fixed base with integral kernels in the form of sheaves (of the same nature) on the fiber product. However, for many applications in mirror symmetry and geometric representation theory one is interested instead in the bounded derived category of c…
Let $X$ be a finite connected simplicial complex, and let $δ$ be a perversity (i.e., some function from integers to integers). One can consider two categories: (1) the category of perverse sheaves cohomologically constructible with respect to the triangulation, and (2) the category of sheaves constant along the perverse simplices ($δ$-sheaves). We interpret the categories (1) and (2) as categories of modules over certain quadratic (and even Koszul) algebras $A(X,δ)$ and $B(X,δ)$ respectively, and we prove that $A(X,δ)$ and $B(X,δ)$ are Koszul dual to each other. We define the $δ$-perverse topo…
For a quasi-compact quasi-separated scheme X and an arbitrary scheme Y we show that the pullback construction implements an equivalence between the discrete category of morphisms Y --> X and the category of cocontinuous tensor functors Qcoh(X) --> Qcoh(Y). This is an improvement of a result by Lurie and may be interpreted as the statement that algebraic geometry is 2-affine. Moreover, we prove the analogous version of this result for Durov's notion of generalized schemes over F_1.
These notes provide a description of the abelian categories that arise as categories of coherent sheaves on weighted projective lines. Two different approaches are presented: one is based on a list of axioms and the other yields a description in terms of expansions of abelian categories. A weighted projective line is obtained from a projective line by inserting finitely many weights. So we describe the category of coherent sheaves on a projective line in some detail, and the insertion of weights amounts to adding simple objects. We call this process `expansion' and treat it axiomatically. Thus…
We describe the derived category of coherent sheaves on the minimal resolution of the Kleinian singularity associated to a finite subgroup G of SL(2). Then, we give an application to the Euler-characteristic version of the Hall algebra of the category of coherent sheaves on an algebraic surface.
Let X be a scheme, and let G be an affine group scheme acting on X. Under reasonable hypotheses on X and G, we construct a t-structure on the derived category of G-equivariant coherent sheaves that in many ways resembles the perverse coherent t-structure, but which incorporates additional information from the G-action. Under certain circumstances, this t-structure, called the "staggered t-structure," has an artinian heart, and its simple objects are particularly easy to describe. We also exhibit two small examples in which the staggered t-structure is better-behaved than the perverse coherent …
