Triangular decompositions: Reedy algebras and quasi-hereditary algebras

Abstract: Finite-dimensional Reedy algebras form a ring-theoretic analogue of Reedy categories and were recently proved to be quasi-hereditary. We identify Reedy algebras with quasi-hereditary algebras admitting a triangular (or Poincar\'e-Birkhoff-Witt type) decomposition into the tensor product of two oppositely directed subalgebras over a common semisimple subalgebra. This exhibits homological and representation-theoretic structure of the ingredients of the Reedy decomposition and it allows to give a characterisation of Reedy algebras in terms of idempotent ideals occurring in heredity chains, providing an analogue for Reedy algebras of a result of Dlab and Ringel on quasi-hereditary algebras.