Representability of cohomological functors over extension fields

Abstract

We generalize a result of Orlov and Van den Bergh on the representability of a cohomological functor from the bounded derived category of a smooth projective variety over a field to the category of L-modules, to the case where L is a field extension of the base field k of the variety X, with L of transcendence degree less than or equal to one or L purely transcendental of degree 2. This result can be applied to investigate the behavior of an exact functor between the bounded derived categories of coherent sheaves of X and Y, with X and Y smooth projective and Y of dimension less than or equal to one or Y a rational surface. We show that for any such F there exists a "generic kernel" A in the derived category of the product, such that F is isomorphic to the Fourier-Mukai transform with kernel A after composing both with the pullback to the generic point of Y.