On quasi-hereditary algebras

Establishing whether an algebra is quasi-hereditary or not is, in general, a difficult problem. In this paper we introduce a sufficient criterion to determine whether a general finite dimensional algebra is quasi-hereditary by showing that the question can be reduced to showing that a closely associated monomial algebra is quasi-hereditary. For monomial algebras, we give an explicit, easily verifiable, necessary and sufficient criterion to determine whether it is quasi-hereditary.