A note on Hopkins' Picard groups of the stable homotopy categories of \(L_n\)-local spectra (Q2302862)

M. Hopkins defined the Picard group of the stable homotopy category as the collection of isomorphism classes of invertible spectra, with multiplication given by the smash product. He showed that this a groups isomorphic to the integers with representing elements given by the spheres \(S^n\) for \(n \in \mathbb{Z}\). A much more interesting group is the Picard group of the category of \(E\)-local spectra for a (\(p\)-local) spectrum \(E\). The smash product of two \(E\)-local spectra might not be \(E\)-local in general, so one needs to apply the Bousfield localization functor \(L_E\) to the result. In this setting the Picard group need not to be a set, but if it is then it is always an abelian group. This paper studies the case \(E=E(n)\), where \(E(n)\) is the Johnson-Wilson spectrum. The \(E\)-localization functor is denoted by \(L_n\), and the corresponding category of \(E(n)\)-local spectra is denoted by \(\mathcal{L}_n\). The Picard group of \(\mathcal{L}_n\) was first studied by \textit{M. Hovey} and \textit{H. Sadosfky} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 60, No. 1, 284--302 (1999; Zbl 0947.55013)] who showed the existence of a natural splitting of the form \[ \mathrm{Pic}(\mathcal{L}_n)=\mathbb{Z}\oplus \mathrm{Pic}(\mathcal{L}_n)^0. \] \textit{Y. Kamiya} and \textit{K. Shimomura} [Contemp. Math. 346, 321--333 (2004; Zbl 1097.55007)] showed that the subgroup \(\mathrm{Pic}(\mathcal{L}_n)^0\) is related to the \(E_r\)-terms of the \(E(n)\)-based Adams-Novikov spectral sequence \(E_r^{*,*}(S^0)\) converging to \(\pi_*(L_n S^0)\). They constructed an injective group homomorphism from the associated graded part of \(\mathrm{Pic}(\mathcal{L}_n)^0\) to the direct sum of the \(E_r\)-terms \(E_r^{r,r-1}(S^0)\) for \(r\geq 2\). In this paper the author shows that this injection is in fact a bijection provided that certain elements in \(E_2^{*,*}(S^0)\) are zero. In particular, it is shown that if \(n< p-1\) and \(n^2 + n \leq 4p-4\), then \[ \mathrm{Pic}(\mathcal{L}_n)^0 \simeq \mathrm{Ext}^{2p-1,2p-2}_{E(n)_*(E(n))}(E(n)_*, E(n)_*). \]