On Picard groups of blocks of finite groups (Q2182337)

Let \(p\) be a prime number, let \(\mathcal O\) be a complete local principal ideal domain with residue field \(k\) of characteristic \(p\). Assume that either \(\mathcal O=k\) or that \(\mathcal O\) has characteristic zero. A block of the group algebra \(\mathcal OG\) for a finite group \(G\) is a primitive idempotent \(b\) of the centre of \(\mathcal OG\), and \(\mathcal OGb\) is a block algebra of \(\mathcal OG\). Given an \(\mathcal O\)-algebra \(B\), the Picard group of \(B\) is the group of isomorphism classes of \((B,B)\)-bimodules inducing a Morita equivalence, with group product induced by the tensor product over \(B\). If \(H\) is a finite group and \(c\) a block of \(\mathcal OH\), a Morita equivalence between \(\mathcal OGb\) and \(\mathcal OHc\) has endopermutation source if it is given by an \((\mathcal OGb,\mathcal OHc)\)-bimodule \(M\) which has an endopermutation \(\mathcal O R\)-module as a source for some vertex \(R\) of \(M\), regarded as an \(\mathcal O(G\times H)\)-module. Let \(P\) be a finite group, and let \(\mathcal F\) be a saturated fusion system on \(P\). The authors show the following results. They prove that the subgroup of the Picard group of a \(p\)-block \(B\) of \(G\) formed by the \((B,B)\)-bimodules with endopermutation sources modulo the automorphism group of a source algebra is determined locally in terms of the fusion system on a defect group (Theorem 1.1). Theorem 1.6 shows that if \(\mathcal O\) has characteristic \(0\) and residue field \(k\) an algebraic closure of \(\mathbb F_p\), then the Picard group of a block over \(\mathcal O\) is a colimit of finite Picard groups of blocks over \(p\)-adic subrings of \(\mathcal O\); in particular, the elements in such Picard group have finite order. Finally, they apply their results to blocks with an abelian defect group and Frobenius inertial quotient (Theorem 1.3), specialising then to blocks with cyclic (Theorem 1.4) and with Klein four (Theorem 1.5) defect groups.