The local structure of algebraic K-theory (Q436194): Difference between revisions

A quote from the preface: ``The idea is that algebraic \(K\)-theory is like an analytic function; and we have this other analytic function called topological cyclic homology (TC)\dots, and the difference between \(K\) and TC is locally constant. This statement will be proven below.'' Although \(K(\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{TC}(\mathbb{Z})\) are quite different, for example, the statement implies that once you know this difference the calculations of \(K(A)\) for rings \(A\) ``near to'' \(\mathbb{Z}\) may be reduced to the calculation of \(\text{TC}(A)\), a more manageable problem. On the other hand, since the difference between \(K(\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\text{TC}(\mathbb{Z})\) is not completely understood, calculations of \(K(A)\) and \(\text{TC}(A)\) can sometimes be used to obtain additional information about that difference. The comparison of \(K\)-theory with topological cyclic homology is by means of a natural transformation called the cyclotomic trace which is the principal subject of this book. An early transformation from \(K\)-theory to a computable theory is the Dennis trace map from \(K\)-theory to Hochschild homology. Bökstedt defined topological Hochschild homology (THH) and refined the Dennis trace map to factor through this new construction. The cyclotomic trace is a further refinement, or lifting, of Bökstedt's version of the Dennis trace. Appropriately, Chapter 1 introduces Algebraic \(K\)-theory, starting with \(K_1\) and the Whitehead group and followed by Grothendieck's \(K_0\), Milnor's \(K_2\), Quillen's plus construction and Waldhausen's construction of the \(K\)-theory spectrum. The chapter ends with a discussion of stable \(K\)-theory as a homology theory. Chapter 2 is a crash course on ring spectra based on the notion of \(\mathbb{S}\)-spaces. The related notions of an \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebra and of modules over an \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebra are also introduced. In Chapter 3 the various \(K\)-theories introduced in Chapter 1 are compared and shown to agree. Moreover, the authors show that simplicial rings are dense in \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebras in the sense that the values of \(K\)-theory in simplicial rings determine the \(K\)-theory of \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebras. Chapter 4 introduces and studies topological Hochschild homology THH. The chapter starts with a discussion of Hochschild homology of \(k\)-algebras and then develops topological Hochschild homology for \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebras. The authors describe the cyclic structure of THH and show that simplicial rings are also dense in \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebras with respect to THH. They extend the definition to cover topological Hochschild homology of a category \({\mathcal C}\) enriched over \(\Gamma\)-spaces. In this context there is an easy definition of a Dennis trace map of \({\mathcal C}\to \text{THH}({\mathcal C})(S^0)\), the underlying space of the spectrum \(\text{THH}({\mathcal C})\). Chapter 5 is devoted to lifting this trace map to a trace of spectra, \(K\to\text{THH}\). Before the general trace map is defined the easier linear case is considered. Moreover, it is shown that the trace induces an equivalence \(K^S(A,P)\simeq\text{THH}(A, P)\) between the stable \(K\)-theory of an \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebra \(A\) and an \(A\)-bimodule \(P\) and the corresponding topological Hochschild homology. The chapter ends with an alternative, more direct construction of the trace using a refinement of the nerve of a category. The next crucial observation is that the trace map \(K\to\text{THH}\) has to factor through the fixed point spectra of the cyclic structure of THH. Consequently, these fixed point spectra should be a better approximation to \(K\)-theory than THH itself. Making this idea precise calls for formulating the definition of topological cyclic homology TC. Therefore Chapter 6 studies the fixed point spectra of THH and relations among them, encoding the information obtained in the definition of TC itself. In Chapter 7 algebraic \(K\)-theory is compared with topological cyclic homology: the trace map \(K\to\text{THH}\) factors through TC, and we obtain the cyclotomic trace \(\text{tr}: K\to \text{TC}\). The main result of the book is Theorem 7.0.02: Let \(B\to A\) be a map of \(\mathbb{S}\)-algebras inducing a surjection \(\pi_0 B\to \pi_0 A\) with nilpotent kernel, then the square \[ \begin{tikzcd} K(B) \rar["{\text{tr}}"]\dar & \text{TC}(B)\dar\\ K(A)\rar["{\text{tr}}" '] & \text{TC}(A)\end{tikzcd} \] induced by the naturality of the cyclotomic trace is homotopy Cartesian, which means that the induced map from the homotopy fibre of the top row to the homotopy fibre of the bottom row is a homotopy equivalence. The \(p\)-complete version of this result has been known for quite some time, but this book is the first source, where the integer version is comprehensively described. The second half of Chapter 7 deals with calculations and applications. Among other things, the Lichtenbaum-Quillen conjecture, the Milnor conjecture, and the Redshift conjecture are addressed as well as the topological Hochschild homology of local number fields, the connection with the de Rham-Witt complex and crystalline cohomology, and the \(K\)-theory Novikov conjecture. The book ends with a number of appendices which provide a tool-kit for the book. They include a treatment of basic properties of simplicial and bisimplicial sets, homotopy limits and colimits, some homotopical algebra, the generalized Blakers-Masseur theorem for cubes, and a short introduction to enriched category theory. The book covers a lot of material. Consequently, many results, and explicit calculations, in particular, are often just quoted. On the other hand, the historical development of the ideas leading to the functors \(K\), THH, and TC and relations among them are carefully described. Many references invite to further reading. The book can be highly recommended to anybody interested in the modern understanding of algebraic \(K\)-theory and its approximations by functors which are more accessible to calculations.