In
mathematics, a triangulated category is a
category with the additional structure of a "translation functor" and a class of "exact triangles". Prominent examples are the
derived category
In mathematics, the derived category ''D''(''A'') of an abelian category ''A'' is a construction of homological algebra introduced to refine and in a certain sense to simplify the theory of derived functors defined on ''A''. The construction proc ...
of an
abelian category
In mathematics, an abelian category is a category in which morphisms and objects can be added and in which kernels and cokernels exist and have desirable properties. The motivating prototypical example of an abelian category is the category of a ...
, as well as the
stable homotopy category
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; th ...
. The exact triangles generalize the
short exact sequence
An exact sequence is a sequence of morphisms between objects (for example, groups, rings, modules, and, more generally, objects of an abelian category) such that the image of one morphism equals the kernel of the next.
Definition
In the contex ...
s in an abelian category, as well as
fiber sequences and
cofiber sequences in topology.
Much of
homological algebra
Homological algebra is the branch of mathematics that studies homology in a general algebraic setting. It is a relatively young discipline, whose origins can be traced to investigations in combinatorial topology (a precursor to algebraic topol ...
is clarified and extended by the language of triangulated categories, an important example being the theory of
sheaf cohomology In mathematics, sheaf cohomology is the application of homological algebra to analyze the global sections of a sheaf on a topological space. Broadly speaking, sheaf cohomology describes the obstructions to solving a geometric problem globally when ...
. In the 1960s, a typical use of triangulated categories was to extend properties of sheaves on a space ''X'' to complexes of sheaves, viewed as objects of the derived category of sheaves on ''X''. More recently, triangulated categories have become objects of interest in their own right. Many equivalences between triangulated categories of different origins have been proved or conjectured. For example, the
homological mirror symmetry
Homological mirror symmetry is a mathematical conjecture made by Maxim Kontsevich. It seeks a systematic mathematical explanation for a phenomenon called mirror symmetry first observed by physicists studying string theory.
History
In an address ...
conjecture predicts that the derived category of a
Calabi–Yau manifold
In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstring ...
is equivalent to the
Fukaya category of its "mirror"
symplectic manifold
In differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, M , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form \omega , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called sympl ...
.
History
Triangulated categories were introduced independently by Dieter Puppe (1962) and
Jean-Louis Verdier
Jean-Louis Verdier (; 2 February 1935 – 25 August 1989) was a French mathematician who worked, under the guidance of his doctoral advisor Alexander Grothendieck, on derived categories and Verdier duality. He was a close collaborator of Groth ...
(1963), although Puppe's axioms were less complete (lacking the octahedral axiom (TR 4)). Puppe was motivated by the stable homotopy category. Verdier's key example was the derived category of an abelian category, which he also defined, developing ideas of
Alexander Grothendieck. The early applications of derived categories included
coherent duality In mathematics, coherent duality is any of a number of generalisations of Serre duality, applying to coherent sheaves, in algebraic geometry and complex manifold theory, as well as some aspects of commutative algebra that are part of the 'local' the ...
and
Verdier duality
In mathematics, Verdier duality is a cohomological duality in algebraic topology that generalizes Poincaré duality for manifolds. Verdier duality was introduced in 1965 by as an analog for locally compact topological spaces of
Alexander Groth ...
, which extends
Poincaré duality
In mathematics, the Poincaré duality theorem, named after Henri Poincaré, is a basic result on the structure of the homology and cohomology groups of manifolds. It states that if ''M'' is an ''n''-dimensional oriented closed manifold ( compa ...
to singular spaces.
Definition
A shift or translation functor on a category ''D'' is an additive automorphism (or for some authors, an auto-
equivalence)
from ''D'' to ''D''. It is common to write
for integers ''n''.
A triangle (''X'', ''Y'', ''Z'', ''u'', ''v'', ''w'') consists of three objects ''X'', ''Y'', and ''Z'', together with morphisms
,
and