Английская Википедия:Categorical trace
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, the categorical trace is a generalization of the trace of a matrix.
Definition
The trace is defined in the context of a symmetric monoidal category C, i.e., a category equipped with a suitable notion of a product <math>\otimes</math>. (The notation reflects that the product is, in many cases, a kind of a tensor product.) An object X in such a category C is called dualizable if there is another object <math>X^\vee</math> playing the role of a dual object of X. In this situation, the trace of a morphism <math>f: X \to X</math> is defined as the composition of the following morphisms: <math>\mathrm{tr}(f) : 1 \ \stackrel{coev}{\longrightarrow}\ X \otimes X^\vee \ \stackrel{f \otimes \operatorname{id}}{\longrightarrow}\ X \otimes X^\vee \ \stackrel{twist}{\longrightarrow}\ X^\vee \otimes X \ \stackrel{eval}{\longrightarrow}\ 1</math> where 1 is the monoidal unit and the extremal morphisms are the coevaluation and evaluation, which are part of the definition of dualizable objects.[1]
The same definition applies, to great effect, also when C is a symmetric monoidal ∞-category.
Examples
- If C is the category of vector spaces over a fixed field k, the dualizable objects are precisely the finite-dimensional vector spaces, and the trace in the sense above is the morphism
- <math>k \to k</math>
- which is the multiplication by the trace of the endomorphism f in the usual sense of linear algebra.
- If C is the ∞-category of chain complexes of modules (over a fixed commutative ring R), dualizable objects V in C are precisely the perfect complexes. The trace in this setting captures, for example, the Euler characteristic, which is the alternating sum of the ranks of its terms:
- <math>\mathrm{tr}(\operatorname{id}_V) = \sum_i (-1)^i \operatorname {rank} V_i.</math>[2]
Further applications
Шаблон:Harvtxt have used categorical trace methods to prove an algebro-geometric version of the Atiyah–Bott fixed point formula, an extension of the Lefschetz fixed point formula.
References