nLab additive envelope

The additive envelope of an Ab-enriched category AA is defined by taking the objects as formal direct sums of objects in AA, and morphisms as matrices of coefficients, giving an additive category. This is a universal construction.

For instance, a semisimple category is the additive envelope of its full subcategory consisting of simple objects. Also, any additive category is equivalent to its own additive envelope.

By further taking the Karoubi envelope (i.e. formally adding images of idempotent elements), one constructs a Karoubian category called the pseudo-abelian envelope of AA. In general, the pseudo-abelian envelope of AA is not abelian.

The combination of additive envelope and Karoubi envelope gives the Cauchy completion in the case of Ab-enriched categories.

Last revised on October 17, 2009 at 05:06:31. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.