Derived categories of (one-sided) exact categories and their localizations

TL;DR

This paper develops a framework for understanding the derived categories of exact and one-sided exact categories and their localizations, establishing how quotients induce Verdier localizations and equivalences in derived categories.

Contribution

It introduces a method to construct quotients of exact categories via localizations and shows these induce Verdier localizations of their bounded derived categories, extending the theory to one-sided exact categories.

Findings

Localization induces Verdier quotients of derived categories.

Embedding into the exact hull lifts to a derived equivalence.

Verdier localization is compatible with enhancements used in K-theory.

Abstract

We consider the quotient of an exact or one-sided exact category $\mathcal{E}$ by a so-called percolating subcategory $\mathcal{A}$. For exact categories, such a quotient is constructed in two steps. Firstly, one localizes $\mathcal{E}$ at a suitable class $S_\mathcal{A} \subseteq \operatorname{Mor}(\mathcal{E})$ of morphisms. The localization $\mathcal{E}[S_\mathcal{A}^{-1}]$ need not be an exact category, but will be a one-sided exact category. Secondly, one constructs the exact hull $\mathcal{E}{/\mkern-6mu/} \mathcal{A}$ of $\mathcal{E}[S_\mathcal{A}^{-1}]$ and shows that this satisfies the 2-universal property of a quotient amongst exact categories. In this paper, we show that this quotient $\mathcal{E} \to \mathcal{E} {/\mkern-6mu/} \mathcal{A}$ induces a Verdier localization $\mathbf{D}^b(\mathcal{E}) \to \mathbf{D}^b(\mathcal{E} {/\mkern-6mu/} \mathcal{A})$ of bounded derived categories. Specifically, (i) we study the derived category of a one-sided exact category, (ii) we show that the localization $\mathcal{E} \to \mathcal{E}[S_\mathcal{A}^{-1}]$ induces a Verdier quotient $\mathbf{D}^b(\mathcal{E}) \to \mathbf{D}^b(\mathcal{E}[S^{-1}_\mathcal{A}])$, and (iii) we show that the natural embedding of a one-sided exact category $\mathcal{F}$ into its exact hull $\overline{\mathcal{F}}$ lifts to a derived equivalence $\mathbf{D}^b(\mathcal{F}) \to \mathbf{D}^b(\overline{\mathcal{F}})$. We furthermore show that the Verdier localization is compatible with several enhancements of the bounded derived category, so that the above Verdier localization can be used in the study of localizing invariants, such as non-connective $K$-theory.