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 . (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 playing the role of a dual object of X. In this situation, the trace of a morphism is defined as the composition of the following morphisms:

where 1 is the monoidal unit and the extremal morphisms are the coevaluation and evaluation, which are part of the definition of dualizable objects.

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

:

which is the multiplication by the trace of the endomorphism f in the usual sense of linear algebra.

• More generally, in the category of modules over a ring R, the dualizable objects are the finitely generated projective modules. The dual of such a module M is , and the evaluation map , (extended linearly), allows the identification , under which the trace of an endomorphism is, again, given by multiplication with the trace, the value of the map above. Similarly, one can define a trace for endomorphisms of locally free sheaves of finite rank on a ringed space, see .
• 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:

:

Further applications

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

Further reading