We show that the standard graded cover of the well-known category $\mathcal{O}$ of Bernstein–Gelfand–Gelfand can be characterized by its compatibility with the action of the center of the enveloping algebra.

Homology theory relative to classes of objects other than those of projective or injective objects in abelian categories has been widely studied in the last years, giving a special relevance to Gorenstein homological algebra. We prove the existence of Gorenstein flat precovers in any locally finitely presented Grothendieck category in which the class of flat objects is closed under extensions, the existence of Gorenstein injective preenvelopes in any locally noetherian Grothendieck category in which the class of all Gorenstein injective objects is closed under direct products, and the existence of special Gorenstein injective preenvelopes in locally noetherian Grothendieck categories with a generator lying in the left orthogonal class to that of Gorenstein injective objects.

We propose the notion of partial resolution of a ring, which is by definition the endomorphism ring of a certain generator of the given ring. We prove that the singularity category of the partial resolution is a quotient of the singularity category of the given ring. Consequences and examples are given.

We relate commutative algebras in braided tensor categories to braid-reversed tensor equivalences, motivated by vertex algebra representation theory. First, for C a braided tensor category, we give a detailed construction of the canonical algebra in C⊠C^rev: if C is semisimple but not necessarily finite or rigid, then ⨁X∈Irr(C) X′⊠X is a commutative algebra, with X′ a representing object for Hom_C(∙⊗_C X,1_C). Conversely, let A=⨁i∈I U_i ⊠ V_i be a simple commutative algebra in U⊠V with U semisimple and rigid but not necessarily finite, and V rigid but not necessarily semisimple. If the unit objects of U and V form a commuting pair in A, we show there is a braid-reversed equivalence between subcategories of U and V sending U_i to (V_i)*. When U and V are module categories for simple vertex operator algebras U and V, we glue U and V along U⊠V via a map τ: Irr(U)→Obj(V) such that τ(U)=V to create A=⨁X∈Irr(U) X′⊗τ(X). Thus under certain conditions, τ extends to a braid-reversed equivalence between U and V if and only if A is a simple conformal vertex algebra extending U⊗V. As examples, we glue Kazhdan-Lusztig categories at generic levels to obtain new vertex algebras extending the tensor product of two affine vertex algebras, and we prove braid-reversed equivalences between certain module categories for affine vertex algebras and W-algebras at admissible levels.

An important goal in studying the relations between unitary VOAs and conformal nets is to prove the equivalence of their ribbon categories. In this article, we prove this conjecture for many familiar examples. Our main idea is to construct new structures associated to conformal nets: the categorical extensions.