Topological Hochschild homology of number rings (Q4942876)

In this paper the authors express the homotopy groups \(THH_*(A)\) of topological Hochschild homology of a number ring \(A\) in terms of the inverse different \({\mathcal D}^{-1}_A\): \[ THH_{2n-1}(A)\cong{\mathcal D}^{-1}_A/nA. \] The even groups are zero in positive dimensions. Calculations of topological Hochschild homology are of interest for a variety of reasons due to the many interpretations of \(THH\). One important interpretation of topological Hochschild homology is as stable K-theory. A refinement of topological Hochschild homology using the (epi-)cyclic structure, called topological cyclic homology has proven to be a good approximation to algebraic K-theory. By giving good descriptions of \(THH\) and its finite fixed points, \textit{L. Hesselholt} and \textit{I. Madsen} recently managed [``On the K-theory of local fields'', Aarhus, preprint series, No. 18 (1999)] to calculate algebraic K-theory with \( \mathbb{Z}/p^\nu\)-coefficients of complete discrete valuation fields of characteristic zero with perfect residue fields of characteristic \(p>2\). The result of this paper was known in special cases. In particular Bökstedt calculated \(THH_*(\mathbb{Z})\), and later also Franjou and Pirashvili obtained \(THH_*(\mathbb{Z})\) by very different methods. The methods in the paper under review are mostly algebraic. Topological Hochschild homology has representations by means of simplicial abelian groups, and there are spectral sequences, making topological Hochchild homology of \(A\) with coefficients in \(\mathbb{Z}/p\) accessible from information about topological Hochschild homology of \(A/p\). In particular, the authors analyze the spectral sequence in the case when \(A\) is a complete discrete valuation field of characteristic zero with perfect residue field of positive characteristic. Topological Hochschild homology and Hochschild homology coincide rationally and Hochschild homology vanishes in positive degrees for rings of integers of separable extensions of the rationals. A Bockstein spectral sequence argument then gives the above formula for complete discrete valuation rings of characteristic zero with finite residue field. Since both sides respect products the global result follows.