The index with respect to a rigid subcategory of a triangulated category

Peter Jørgensen, Amit Shah

Published 2022-01-03, updated 2023-10-16Version 3

Palu defined the index with respect to a cluster tilting object in a suitable triangulated category, in order to better understand the Caldero-Chapoton map that exhibits the connection between cluster algebras and representation theory. We push this further by proposing an index with respect to a contravariantly finite, rigid subcategory, and we show this index behaves similarly to the classical index. Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a skeletally small triangulated category with split idempotents, which is thus an extriangulated category $(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E},\mathfrak{s})$. Suppose $\mathcal{X}$ is a contravariantly finite, rigid subcategory in $\mathcal{C}$. We define the index $\mathrm{ind}_{\mathcal{X}}(C)$ of an object $C\in\mathcal{C}$ with respect to $\mathcal{X}$ as the $K_{0}$-class $[C]_{\mathcal{X}}$ in Grothendieck group $K_{0}(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{X}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{X}})$ of the relative extriangulated category $(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{X}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{X}})$. By analogy to the classical case, we give an additivity formula with error term for $\mathrm{ind}_{\mathcal{X}}$ on triangles in $\mathcal{C}$. In case $\mathcal{X}$ is contained in another suitable subcategory $\mathcal{T}$ of $\mathcal{C}$, there is a surjection $Q\colon K_{0}(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{T}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{T}}) \twoheadrightarrow K_{0}(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{X}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{X}})$. Thus, in order to describe $K_{0}(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{X}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{X}})$, it suffices to determine $K_{0}(\mathcal{C},\mathbb{E}_{\mathcal{T}},\mathfrak{s}_{\mathcal{T}})$ and $\operatorname{Ker} Q$. We do this under certain assumptions.