Contractible stability spaces and faithful braid group actions

Abstract

We prove that any `finite-type' component of a stability space of a triangulated category is contractible. The motivating example of such a component is the stability space of the Calabi--Yau-$N$ category $\mathcal{D}(Γ_N Q)$ associated to an ADE Dynkin quiver. In addition to showing that this is contractible we prove that the braid group $\operatorname{Br}(Q)$ acts freely upon it by spherical twists, in particular that the spherical twist group $\operatorname{Br}(Γ_N Q)$ is isomorphic to $\operatorname{Br}(Q)$. This generalises Brav-Thomas' result for the $N=2$ case. Other classes of triangulated categories with finite-type components in their stability spaces include locally-finite triangulated categories with finite rank Grothendieck group and discrete derived categories of finite global dimension.

Final version, to appear in Geom. Topol