On the derived category of a regular toric scheme

Abstract

Let X be a quasi-compact scheme, equipped with an open covering by affine schemes. A quasi-coherent sheaf on X gives rise, by taking sections over the covering sets, to a diagram of modules over the various coordinate rings. The resulting "twisted" diagram of modules satisfies a certain gluing condition, stating that the data is compatible with restriction to smaller open sets. In case X is a regular toric scheme over an arbitrary commutative ring, we prove that the unbounded derived category D(X) of quasi-coherent sheaves on X can be obtained from a category of twisted diagrams which do not necessarily satisfy any gluing condition by inverting maps which induce homology isomorphisms on hyper-derived inverse limits. Moreover, we given an explicit construction of a finite set of weak generators for the derived category. For example, if X is projective n-space then D(X) is generated by n+1 successive twists of the structure sheaf; the present paper gives a new homotopy-theoretic proof of this classical result. The approach taken uses the language of model categories, and the machinery of Bousfield-Hirschhorn colocalisation. The first step is to characterise colocal objects; these turn out to be homotopy sheaves in the sense that chain complexes over different open sets agree on intersections up to quasi-isomorphism only. In a second step it is shown that the homotopy category of homotopy sheaves is the derived category of X.