Stable functors and cohomology theory in abelian categories

Abstract: In this paper, we first introduce stable functors with respect to a preenveloping/precovering subcategory and investigate some of their properties. Using that we then introduce and study a relative complete cohomology theory in abelian categories. Some properties of the cohomology including vanishing are given. As applications, we give some characterizations of objects of finite homological dimensions including the flat dimension, cotorsion dimension, Gorenstein injective/flat dimension and projectively coresolved Gorenstein flat dimension.