Auslander-Reiten triangles in subcategories

Abstract

This paper introduces Auslander-Reiten triangles in subcategories of triangulated categories. The main theorem of the paper shows that there is a close connection with covers and envelopes, also known as minimal right- and left-approximations. Namely, under suitable assumptions, if M is an object in the subcategory C of the triangulated category T and X --> Y --> M --> is an Auslander-Reiten triangle in T, then there is an Auslander-Reiten triangle K --> L --> M --> in C if and only if there is a C-cover of the form K --> X. The main theorem is used to give a new proof of the existence of Auslander-Reiten sequences over finite dimensional algebras.