Tate cohomology of connected k-theory for elementary abelian groups revisited (Q2274456)

This paper gives a direct calculation of the Tate cohomology for connective complex \(K\)-theory of \((\mathbb{Z}/p)^n\), \(p\) a prime, recovering results of \textit{R. R. Bruner} and \textit{J. P. C. Greenlees} [The connective \(K\)-theory of finite groups. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2003; Zbl 1032.19003)] at the prime \(2\). The authors work with modules over the \(E_\infty\)-spectrum \(k\) representing connected complex \(K\)-theory; for a positive integer \(n\), they first identify the \(k\)-Borel (co)homology spectra and then use the Norm cofibration sequence \[ k \wedge B (\mathbb{Z}/p)^n_+ \stackrel{N}{\rightarrow} F (B (\mathbb{Z}/p)^n_+, k) \rightarrow \hat{k}^{(\mathbb{Z}/p)^n} \] to identify the \(k\)-Tate cohomology spectrum \(\hat{k}^{(\mathbb{Z}/p)^n} \) as a \(k\)-module. The calculation of the \(k\)-Borel (co)homology essentially follows from homological algebra over the coefficient ring \(\mathbb{Z}[\beta]\), using the form of the module \(k_* (B\mathbb{Z}/p)\). Smashing over \(k\) with \(k \wedge B (\mathbb{Z}/p)\) leads inductively to the identification of the \(k\)-module spectra \(k \wedge B (\mathbb{Z}/p)^{\wedge n}\) and \(F (B (\mathbb{Z}/p)^n, k) \). For example, \(k \wedge B (\mathbb{Z}/2)^{\wedge n}\) is a wedge of an iterated suspension of \(k \wedge B \mathbb{Z}/2\) with a wedge of iterated suspensions of the Eilenberg-MacLane spectrum \(H \mathbb{Z}/2\). For the \(k\)-Tate cohomology, the Eilenberg-MacLane summands are treated easily and give rise to a wedge summand. The complementary \(k\)-module is determined by exploiting the relationship with the periodic \(K\)-theory Tate spectrum \(\hat{K}^{(\mathbb{Z}/p)^n}\); first the coefficients are identified and then this is realized as a wedge of suitable suspensions of an explicit \(k\)-module \(\mathcal{Q}_n\) constructed from Eilenberg-MacLane spectra and a finite Postnikov piece of the \(p\)-completion \(k^{\wedge}_p\). The authors show that their result agrees with that of Bruner and Greenlees at the prime \(2\) by comparing the Borel homology results, which reduces to identifying the contributions from the Eilenberg-MacLane spectra.