Rigidity in motivic homotopy theory (Q927273)

The present paper is an enlightening work on motivic stable homotopy theory. The authors study the fundamental question how the motivic stable homotopy category behaves under base change. The main theorem is that the base change along an extension of algebraically closed fields whose exponential characteristic is prime to \(\ell\) induces a full and faithful functor between the mod-\(\ell\)-motivic stable homotopy categories over the fields. Such a behavior under base change is generally known as \textit{rigidity}. \textit{A. Suslin} has shown a similar property for algebraic \(K\)-theory in his celebrated paper [Invent. Math. 73, 241--245 (1983; Zbl 0514.18008)]. Since then several generalizations and applications in other theories have been achieved. The strategy of the proof is almost always based on Suslin's ingenious idea in [loc. cit.]. Suslin showed that certain maps in algebraic \(K\)-theory induced by different rational points on a smooth projective curve agree by proving that the maps factor through the group of divisors of degree zero of the curve and using the divisibility of this group. He called this result the Rigidity Theorem in loc. cit. which turned out to be the mother of all rigidity results. The authors of the present paper also use Suslin's idea. But on their way to prove the main result, they also show several other interesting properties of the motivic stable homotopy category and the category of motivic symmetric spectra which are needed to generalize Suslin's input, but which are of independent interest as well. The second main ingredient is the construction of suitable transfer maps. The authors construct them over general base schemes in two different ways for finite étale maps and for what they call linear maps between smooth schemes. The third main point is a very interesting discussion of motivic Moore spectra and an explicit fibrant replacement functor in the mod-\(n\)-localized category of motivic symmetric spectra. The authors conclude the paper with an Appendix on Homological Localization giving an alternative foundation for a localization theory of motivic symmetric spectra.