Grothendieck Groups and the Eilenberg Swindle July 12, 2009
Posted by Akhil Mathew in algebra, representation theory.Tags: algebra, Eilenberg swindle, Grothendieck groups, k-theory, representation theory
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The following topic came up in a discussion with my mentor recently. Since the material is somewhat general and well-known, but relevant to my project area, I decided to write this post partially to help myself understand it better.
Definition
Consider an abelian category . Then:
Definition 1 The Grothendieck group of is the abelian group defined via generators and relations as follows: is generated by symbols for each , and by relations for each exact sequence
Note here that if are isomorphic, then in by considering the exact sequence
The Grothendieck group has an important universal property: (more…)