On the nil groups of Waldhausen nils (Q1763614)

A virtually cyclic group \(\Gamma\) is a group which is either finite or has an infinite cyclic subgroup of finite index. Suppose that \(R\) is a ring of algebraic integers and \(R\Gamma\) is the group ring of \(\Gamma\) over \(R\). \smallskip The main theorem of this paper is a vanishing result for the higher nil groups \(N^{r}K_{i}(R\Gamma)\) for virtually cyclic groups and rings of algebraic integers \(R\). Specifically, the authors show that \[ N^{r}K_{i}(R\Gamma) = 0 \text{ for \(r \geq 1, \;i \leq -1\).} \] The Farrell-Jones isomorphism conjecture, as formulated by \textit{J. F. Davis} and \textit{W. Lück} [K-Theory 15, 201--252 (1998; Zbl 0921.19003)], asserts that the \(K\)-theory of the group ring \(RG\) for a discrete group \(G\) can be recovered from a spectral sequence involving the \(K\)-theory of the group rings \(R\Gamma\) of the virtually cyclic subgroups \(\Gamma \subset G\), in the sense that a certain assembly map is an isomorphism. The authors show that their main result and this conjecture together imply that the nil groups \(NK_{i}(RG)\) vanish for \(i \leq 1\) for all discrete groups \(G\) and all rings of algebraic integers \(R\).