Algebras of operations in \(K\)-theory (Q1765330)

The paper is concerned with the algebras \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) and \(K^0_{(p)}(K_{(p)})\) of degree zero operations in connective and periodic \(p\)-local complex \(K\)-theory. More precisely, it is shown that these operations can be uniquely written in terms of certain infinite combinations of Adams operations, which enables one to describe the product and coproduct structure maps. The authors have previously [\(K\)-theory 23, 237--250 (2001; Zbl 0997.55021)] given additive bases for the ring of cooperations in \(p\)-local \(K\)-theory. The results obtained here are based on the construction of the elements dual to these bases. For each \(n \geq 0\) define \(\theta_n(X) \in {\mathbb Z}[X]\) by \(\theta_n(X)=\prod^{n-1}_{i=0}(X-q^i)\) where \(q\) denotes an integer which is primitive modulo \(p^2\) (for \(p\) odd) and \(\varphi_n \in k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) by \(\varphi_n=\theta_n(\psi^q)\) where \(\psi^q\) is the Adams operation. The authors show that the \(\varphi_n\) are a stated dual basis and every element of \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) can be uniquely expressed as an infinite sum \(\sum_{n \geq 0}a_n\varphi_n\) where \(a_n \in {\mathbb Z}_{(p)}\) (Theorem 2.2). Hence by definition one sees that each \(\varphi_n\) can be written as a linear combination of Adams operations of the form \(\psi^{q^j}\). Now one has a stable Adams operation \(\psi^\alpha\) for each \(\alpha \in {\mathbb Z}_{(p)}^\times\) and it holds that \(\psi^\alpha\psi^\beta=\psi^{\alpha\beta}\). So the group ring \({\mathbb Z}_{(p)}[{\mathbb Z}_{(p)}^\times]\) may be regarded as a subring of \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\). The first main theorem above shows that \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) is equal to a completion of this subring. This is derived from the discussion in proving that, as a ring, \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) is not Noetherian (Theorem 3.1). As in the case of \(p\)-local \(K\)-theory one has an Adams summand \(g^0(g)\) of \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) as an algebra. Then the above results on \(k^0_{(p)}(k_{(p)})\) have analogues for this algebra (Section 4). In addition it is proved that the \(p\)-adic completion of \(g^0(g)\) is the power series ring over \(\widehat{\mathbb Z}_p\) generated by \(\psi^q-1\) (Theorem 5.1). In Section 6 analogues for periodic \(K\)-theory are dealt with and Section 7 discusses the relation between the connective and periodic cases. Moreover Sections 8 and 9 refer to the case \(p=2\) involving \(KO\)-theory, but the details of proofs are omitted since the arguments which are a little more complicated may be parallel to those in the preceding sections. Finally, in Appendix A, the relevant facts about polynomials are gathered together to give convenience for the calculations in this paper.