The Spectrum of a Module Category

Book excerpt: These notes present an introduction into the spectrum of the category of modules over a ring. We discuss the general theory of pure-injective modules and concentrate on the isomorphism classes of indecomposable pure-injective modules which form the underlying set of this spectrum. The interplay between the spectrum and the category of finitely presented modules provides new insight into the geometrical and homological properties of the category of finitely presented modules. Various applications from representation theory of finite dimensional algebras are included.