Completed representation ring spectra of nilpotent groups (Q2492030)

This intriguing paper provides yet further evidence of an expanding symbiotic relationship between stable homotopy theory and what might be described as derived algebra. In various algebraic settings the utility of completion with respect to an ideal of a ring has been well established since early in the twentieth century. This notion generalizes that of \(p\)-adic completion from number theory which can also be extended to \(p\)-adic completion of nilpotent groups. In algebraic topology, the original version of the Adams spectral sequence for a spectrum \(X\) based on mod~\(p\) (co)homology converges to the homotopy of a kind of \(p\)-adic completion of \(X\). The precise nature of this completion was first fully explored by \textit{A. K. Bousfield} [Topology 18, 257--281 (1979; Zbl 0417.55007)] who showed how to build an analogous spectral sequence based on any reasonable homology theory \(E_*(-)\). The convergence is to the homotopy of a suitable \(E\)-nilpotent completion which is the homotopy limit of a pro-object of spectra; in exceptional circumstances this is equivalent to the Bousfield \(E\)-localization of \(X\). Much more recently this construction has been generalized to some of the new categories of module spectra described by \textit{A. D. Elmendorf, I. Kriz, M. A. Mandell} and \textit{J. P. May} [Rings, modules, and algebras in stable homotopy theory. Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 47. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (1997; Zbl 0894.55001)], see for example [\textit{A. Baker} and \textit{A. Lazarev}, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 1, 173--199 (2001; Zbl 0970.55006)]. This theory also has extensions to the algebraic context of the derived category of a commutative ring, a version of this appeared in the Glasgow PhD thesis of M.~Alshumrani (2006), and there are close connections to work of \textit{J.P. C. Greenlees} and \textit{J. P. May} [J. Algebra 149, No. 2, 438--453 (1992; Zbl 0774.18007)]. The present paper investigates a suitable \(p\)-completion of the continuous unitary representation ring \(R[G\sphat_p]\) of the \(p\)-adic completion \(G\sphat_p\) of a nilpotent group from this point of view. A crucial point is that associated to this purely algebraic data there is an Eilenberg-Mac~Lane spectrum \(\mathbb{H}R[G\sphat_p]\) which has a Bousfield \(p\)-adic completion \(\mathbb{H}R[G\sphat_p]\sphat_{\mathbb{HF}p}\); the homotopy and homology groups of this are potentially interesting invariants of the group \(G\). One of the main results obtained identifies the homotopy type of \(\mathbb{H}R[G\sphat_p]\sphat_{\mathbb{HF}p}\) as \(\mathbb{HZ}\wedge \Sigma^\infty_+(\text{Irr}(G))\sphat_{\mathbb{HF}p}\), where \(\text{Irr}(G)\) is the topological space of irreducible continuous unitary characters of \(G\). The main cases of \(G\) considered are the integers and the integer Heisenberg group, the calculations for the latter completing work in the Stanford PhD thesis of \textit{C.~Bray} (1999).