Ausoni-Bökstedt duality for topological Hochschild homology (Q898179)

If \(R\) is a ring augmented over a field \(k\) or a structured ring spectrum augmented over the Eilenberg--Mac Lane spectrum of \(k\), one can form the topological Hochschild homology \(\text{THH}(R;k)\) of \(R\) with coefficients in \(k\). The author observes that in many of the known examples for computations of \(\text{THH}(R;k)\), the ring of homotopy groups \(\text{THH}_*(R;k)\) is Gorenstein. These examples include cases where \(R\) is the field \(\mathbb F_p\) (computed in unpublished work of Bökstedt) or the Adams-summand \(lu\) (see \textit{J. E. McClure} and \textit{R. E. Staffeldt} [Am. J. Math. 115, No. 1, 1--45 (1993; Zbl 0770.55010)]). The main result of the paper under review is a non-calculational explanation for the Gorenstein property of \(\text{THH}_*(R;k)\). For this the author examines if the ring spectrum \(\text{THH}(R;k)\) is Gorenstein in the sense of Dwyer, Greenlees and Iyengar [\textit{W. G. Dwyer} et al., Adv. Math. 200, No. 2, 357--402 (2006; Zbl 1155.55302)]. This is interesting because of the resulting duality properties. The main theorem states that given a morphism \(R \to H k\) from a commutative structured ring spectrum \(R\) to the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum \(H k\) of a field \(k\) of positive characteristic, \(\text{THH}(R;k)\) is Gorenstein of shift \(-a-3\) provided that \(R\) is Gorenstein of shift \(a\) and that \(Hk\) is small as a \(R\)-module. The main steps towards the proof of this theorem are a Gorenstein ascent result, and a lemma (due to Dundas) which relates the \(\text{THH}\)-spectra of augmented commutative structured ring spectra sitting in a homotopy cofiber sequence. The author also points out that besides shedding new light on the known computations of \(\text{THH}(R;k)\), the present result also establishes the Gorenstein property in new examples, including the map \(e_n \to \mathbb F_p\) from the connective Lubin-Tate spectrum \(e_n\).