The functor of units of Burnside rings for \(p\)-groups (Q2466957)

This paper is concerned with the multiplicative group \(B^\times(G)\) of units of the Burnside ring \(B(G)\) of the finite group \(G\). The author proves that \(B^\times \) is a rational biset functor, by showing that the functor \(B^\times\), restricted to \(p\)-groups, is a subfunctor of the functor \({\mathbb F}_2R^*_{\mathbb Q}\), where \(R^*_{\mathbb Q}=\text{Hom}_{\mathbb Z}(R_{\mathbb Q},{\mathbb Z})\) is the \({\mathbb Z}\)-dual of the functor \(R_{\mathbb Q}\) of rational representations, and \({\mathbb F}_2R^*_{\mathbb Q}={\mathbb F}_2\otimes R^*_{\mathbb Q}\). For a \(p\)-group \(P\) this leads to a description of \(B^\times(P)\) in terms of a genetic basis of \(P\), or equivalently, in terms of rational irreducible representations of \(P\). The group \(B^\times (P)\) is an elementary abelian \(2\)-group of rank equal to the number of isomorphism classes of rational irreducible representations of \(P\) whose type is trivial, cyclic of order \(2\), or dihedral. The final main result is a description of the lattice of subfunctors of \({\mathbb F}_2R_{\mathbb Q}\). This leads to a complete answer to the question on surjectivity of the exponential map \(B(P)\to B^\times(P)\) for a \(2\)-group \(P\). Another consequence is the existence of a short exact sequence of \(p\)-biset functors involving \(B^\times\), \({\mathbb F}_2\otimes R^*_{\mathbb Q}\) and the \({\mathbb F}_2D^\Omega_{\text{tors}}\) of the torsion subfunctor of the functor of relative syzygies in the Dade group.