Let f:X\to Y be a continuous map of topological spaces, which in particular gives a
functor f_* from
sheaves of abelian groups on X to sheaves of abelian groups on Y. Composing this with the functor \Gamma of taking sections on \text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(Y) is the same as taking sections on \text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(X), by the definition of the direct image functor f_*: :\mathrm{Sh_{Ab}} (X) \xrightarrow{f_*} \mathrm{Sh_{Ab}}(Y) \xrightarrow{\Gamma} \mathrm{Ab}. Thus the
derived functors of \Gamma \circ f_* compute the
sheaf cohomology for X: : R^i (\Gamma \cdot f_*)(\mathcal{F})=H^i(X,\mathcal{F}). But because f_* and \Gamma send
injective objects in \text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(X) to \Gamma-
acyclic objects in \text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(Y), there is a
spectral sequencepg 33,19 whose second page is : E^{pq}_2=(R^p\Gamma \cdot R^q f_*)(\mathcal{F})=H^p(Y,R^qf_*(\mathcal{F})) , and which converges to : E^{p+q} = R^{p+q}(\Gamma \circ f_*)(\mathcal{F})= H^{p+q}(X,\mathcal{F}) . This is called the
Leray spectral sequence.
Generalizing to other sheaves and complexes of sheaves Note this result can be generalized by instead considering sheaves of modules over a
locally constant sheaf of rings \underline{A} for a fixed commutative ring A. Then, the sheaves will be sheaves of \underline{A}-modules, where for an open set U \subset X, such a sheaf \mathcal{F} \in \text{Sh}_{\underline{A}}(X) is an \underline{A}(U)-module for \mathcal{F}(U). In addition, instead of sheaves, we could consider complexes of sheaves bounded below \mathcal{F}^\bullet \in D^+_{\underline{A}}(X) for the
derived category of \text{Sh}_{\underline{A}}(X). Then, one replaces sheaf cohomology with
sheaf hypercohomology.
Construction The existence of the Leray spectral sequence is a direct application of the
Grothendieck spectral sequencepg 19. This states that given additive functors :\mathcal{A} \xrightarrow{G}\mathcal{B} \xrightarrow{F} \mathcal{C} between
Abelian categories having
enough injectives, F a
left-exact functor, and G sending injective objects to F-acyclic objects, then there is an isomorphism of
derived functors :R^+(F\circ G) \simeq R^+F\circ R^+G for the derived categories D^+(\mathcal{A}),D^+(\mathcal{B}), D^+(\mathcal{C}). In the example above, we have the composition of derived functors :D^+(\text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(X)) \xrightarrow{Rf_*} D^+(\text{Sh}_\text{Ab}(Y)) \xrightarrow{\Gamma} D^+(\text{Ab}). ==Classical definition==