The Bousfield lattice for truncated polynomial algebras (Q927630)

This paper is motivated by the general problem of understanding the global structure of the stable homotopy theory category of spectra. From the work of \textit{A. Neeman} [Topology 31, No. 3, 519--532 (1992; Zbl 0793.18008)], it is known that that the category of spectra behaves more like the derived category of a non-noetherian ring. Therefore the authors investigate throughly the derived category of a specific non-noetherian ring, namely, the truncated polynomial ring on countable many generators. Let \[ \Lambda = k[x_1, x_{2}, x_{3}, \dots ]/(x_{i}^{n} \text{ for all } i) \] be a truncated polynomial ring on countably many generators with deg of \(x_{i} = 2^{i}\) for all \(i\). The authors prove ``stable-homotopy-theoretic'' results for the derived category \(D(\Lambda\)) of \(\Lambda\). Specifically, their results concern the Bousfield lattice of this derived category which is defined as follows. Given an object \(X\) in \(D(\Lambda)\), its Bousfield class is \[ \langle X \rangle = \{ W \in \text{ob}\, D(\Lambda) : X \otimes^L_R W = 0\}. \] The Bousfield classes form a lattice \(B(\Lambda)\) where the partial order is reverse inclusion. This lattice encodes useful information about the derived category. The main result of the author states that the Bousfield lattice \(B(\Lambda)\) of \(D(\Lambda)\) has cardinality at least \(2^{2^{\aleph_0}}\), and moreover, if \(k\) is countable, then the cardinality of \(B(\Lambda)\) is exactly \(2^{2^{\aleph_0}}\). The authors also construct objects in \(D(\Lambda)\) with large tensor nilpotence height, i.e., they construct objects \(X_n\) such that the \(n\)-fold derived tensor product of \(X_n\) with itself is non-zero, while the \((n+1)\)-fold derived tensor product is zero. The paper has other interesting results including a nilpotence theorem, a periodicity theorem, and a thick subcategory theorem in the spirit of Devinats, Hopkins and Smith [\textit{E.~S. Devinatz, M.~J. Hopkins}, and \textit{J.~H. Smith}, ``Nilpotence and stable homotopy theory. I'', Ann. Math. (2) 128, No. 2, 207--241 (1988; Zbl 0673.55008); \textit{M.~J. Hopkins} and \textit{J.~H. Smith}, ``Nilpotence and stable homotopy theory. II'', Ann. Math. (2) 148, No. 1, 1--49 (1998; Zbl 0927.55015)].