A Chinese remainder theorem and Carlson's theorem for monoidal triangulated categories

Abstract

In this paper the authors prove fundamental decomposition theorems pertaining to the internal structure of monoidal triangulated categories (M$\Delta$Cs). The tensor structure of an M$\Delta$C enables one to view these categories like (noncommutative) rings and to attempt to extend the key results for the latter to the categorical setting. The main theorem is an analogue of the Chinese Remainder Theorem involving the Verdier quotients for coprime thick ideals. This result is used to obtain orthogonal decompositions of the extended endomorphism rings of idempotent algebra objects of M$\Delta$Cs. The authors also provide topological characterizations on when an M$\Delta$C contains a pair of coprime proper thick ideals, and additionally, when the latter are complementary in the sense that their intersection is contained in the prime radical of the category. As an application of the aforementioned results, the authors establish for arbitrary M$\Delta$Cs a general version of Carlson's theorem on the connnectedness of supports for indecomposable objects. Examples of our results are given at the end of the paper for the derived category of schemes and for the stable module categories for finite group schemes.