Two-complete stable motivic stems over finite fields (Q518837)

The authors study motivic stable homotopy groups over finite base fields, specifically in weight zero, in a range. These computations are obtained in a number of steps: by the motivic Serre finiteness theorem, the groups \(\pi_{n,0}(F_q)\) are torsion. It follows that the \(l\)-primary part of these groups is given by the homotopy groups of the \(l\)-completion of the motivic sphere spectrum, which can be computed using the motivic Adams spectral sequence, as long as \(l \neq p\). In the range computed one finds that away from \(p\), \(\pi_{n,0}(F_q) = \pi_{n} \oplus \pi_{n+1}\). Here the right hand side denotes the ordinary stable homotopy groups. The authors also show that this pattern does not continue for \(n>18\). The occurrence of the classical stable stems may at first appear surprising. The authors show further that if \(\bar{F}\) is an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(p\), then away from \(p\) we have \(\pi_{n,0}(\bar{F}) = \pi_n\), via the canonical map. This is an analogue of a theorem of Levine (who establishes this result for \(\bar{F}=\mathbb{C}\)). The result is proved by relating the completed motivic stable homotopy groups over a Henselian dvr (of mixed characteristic!), its residue and fraction field, using Spitzweck's theory of motivic cohomology. In the opinion of the reviewer, this is the most innovative part of the paper.