The Galois group of a stable homotopy theory (Q2634787)

This extensively referenced paper establishes the notion of a Galois group of a stable homotopy theory, which is related to work of Baker, Richter and Rognes on Galois extensions of structured ring spectra. Here a stable homotopy theory is a presentable, symmetric monoidal stable \(\infty\)-category. Other invariants which can be associated to such a category include the Picard group (the group of objects with an inverse under the monoidal product), the algebraic \(K\)-theory (of the compact objects) or the lattice of thick subcategories. This new Galois group is an analog of the étale fundamental group of a connected scheme. In particular, there is a version of the Galois correspondence in this new setting. The first half of the paper sets up the substantial amount of machinery needed to define the Galois categories, the Galois group of a Galois category and to prove the Galois correspondence. Numerous calculations are given in the second half of the paper. In the following selected examples, the Galois group of an \(E_\infty\)-ring is defined to be the Galois group of its category of modules. The Galois group of a connective \(E_\infty\)-ring \(A\) is the étale fundamental group of Spec\(\pi_0 A\). If \(A\) is an even periodic \(E_\infty\)-ring with \(\pi_0 (A)\) regular Noetherian, then the Galois group of \(A\) is that of the discrete ring \(\pi_0 A\). The Galois group of the \(\infty\)-category of \(K(n)\)-local spectra is the extended Morava stabiliser group and the Galois group of \(TMF\), periodic topological modular forms, is trivial.