No label defined (Q4510757)

In this survey article, the author starts by defining the Burnside ring \(B(G)\) of a finite group \(G\) as the Grothendieck ring of the category of finite \(G\)-sets. Then the mark homomorphism from \(B(G)\) into the ghost ring \(\mathbb Z^n\) is constructed (where \(n\) is the number of conjugacy classes of \(G\)), and its cokernel is computed. This leads to a determination of the idempotents in \(\mathbb Q \otimes_\mathbb Z B(G)\) and their integrality properties. Then the prime spectrum of \(B(G)\) is analyzed. As an application of these results, the author outlines proofs of induction theorems by Artin, Brauer, Conlon and Dress. Another application has to do with finite \(G\)-posets and their Lefschetz invariants. In particular, variants of results of \textit{K. Brown, D. Quillen} and \textit{P. Webb} on the poset of non-trivial \(p\)-subgroups of \(G\), for a prime \(p\), are given. Then the point of view changes, and the author considers the Burnside ring as an object in the categories of Mackey and Green functors. It is shown that the Burnside ring functor is a projective Mackey functor and an initial object in the category of Green functors. These facts lead to additive decompositions of Mackey functors and connections with \(p\)-permutation modules. Given finite groups \(G,H\), every finite \(G-H\)-biset defines a map \(B(H)\to B(G)\), via ``tensoring''. Well known examples are induction, restriction and inflation. This leads to a consideration of the category \(\mathcal C \) whose objects are finite groups, whose morphisms are elements in the Burnside group \(B(G\times H^0)\), and where composition is given by the ``tensor product''. The endomorphism ring of \(G\) in \(\mathcal C \) is the double Burnside ring \(B(G\times G)\). This double Burnside ring has important connections to stable splittings of the classifying space of \(G\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0949.00006].