In the
mathematical
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
field of
representation theory
Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...
, a highest-weight category is a
''k''-linear category C (here ''k'' is a
field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
) that
*is ''locally artinian''
*has
enough injectives
In mathematics, especially in the field of category theory, the concept of injective object is a generalization of the concept of injective module. This concept is important in cohomology, in homotopy theory and in the theory of model categori ...
*satisfies
::
:for all subobjects ''B'' and each family of subobjects of each object ''X''
and such that there is a
locally finite poset
In mathematics, a locally finite poset is a partially ordered set ''P'' such that for all ''x'', ''y'' ∈ ''P'', the interval 'x'', ''y''consists of finitely many elements.
Given a locally finite poset ''P'' we can defin ...
Λ (whose elements are called the weights of C) that satisfies the following conditions:
* The poset Λ indexes an exhaustive set of non-isomorphic
simple object
This is a glossary of properties and concepts in category theory in mathematics. (see also Outline of category theory.)
*Notes on foundations: In many expositions (e.g., Vistoli), the set-theoretic issues are ignored; this means, for instance, t ...
s in C.
* Λ also indexes a collection of objects of objects of C such that there exist embeddings ''S''(''λ'') → ''A''(''λ'') such that all
composition factor In abstract algebra, a composition series provides a way to break up an algebraic structure, such as a group or a module, into simple pieces. The need for considering composition series in the context of modules arises from the fact that many natur ...
s ''S''(''μ'') of ''A''(''λ'')/''S''(''λ'') satisfy ''μ'' < ''λ''.
* For all ''μ'', ''λ'' in Λ,
::
:is finite, and the
multiplicity
Multiplicity may refer to: In science and the humanities
* Multiplicity (mathematics), the number of times an element is repeated in a multiset
* Multiplicity (philosophy), a philosophical concept
* Multiplicity (psychology), having or using multi ...
[Here, if ''A'' is an object in C and ''S'' is a simple object in C, the multiplicity :Sis, by definition, the supremum of the multiplicity of ''S'' in all finite length subobjects of ''A''.]
::