In mathematics, the derived category D(A) of an A is a construction of homological algebra introduced to refine and in a certain sense to simplify the theory of derived functors defined on A. The construction proceeds on the basis that the of D(A) should be chain complexes in A, with two such chain complexes considered isomorphic when there is a chain map that induces an isomorphism on the level of homology of the chain complexes. Derived functors can then be defined for chain complexes, refining the concept of hypercohomology.
In differential geometry, the cotangent space is a vector space associated with a point on a smooth (or differentiable) manifold ; one can define a cotangent space for every point on a smooth manifold. Typically, the cotangent space, is defined as the dual space of the tangent space at , , although there are more direct definitions (see below). The elements of the cotangent space are called cotangent vectors or tangent covectors. All cotangent spaces at points on a connected manifold have the same dimension, equal to the dimension of the manifold.