Generalised Witt vectors
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Generalised Witt vectors
zbMATH Open document ID: 0783.13022
author: John J. Graham
published in: Advances in Mathematics
publication date: 1994-03-08T00:00:00Z
review text: A generalization of the ring of Witt vectors is the Burnside-Witt ring \(W_ G(A)\) whose elements are sequences of elements in \(A\) indexed by conjugacy classes of open subgroups of a profinite group \(G\), introduced by \textit{A. W. M. Dress} and \textit{C. Siebeneicher} [Adv. Math. 70, No. 1, 87-132 (1988; Zbl 0691.13026)]. This paper characterizes this ring algorithmically generalizing the carryless Witt vectors of \textit{N. Metropolis} and \textit{G.-G. Rota} [Adv. Math. 50, 95-125 (1983; Zbl 0545.05009)]. Here is an outline of the construction: For a \(G\)-set \(X\) (a group \(G\) acting on \(X\)) say that the action is essentially finite iff for any subgroup \(U\) of \(G\) of finite index the fixed set \(X^ U\) is finite; call it almost finite if also every element of \(X\) lies in a finite orbit. Define an equivalence relation on \(G\)-sets by \(X\sim Y\) iff for every \(U\) as above \(X^ U= Y^ U\). Disjoint union and Cartesian product endows the equivalences classes with a structure of a semiring satisfying the cancellation law, hence one can consider the associated ring, this is the Burnside ring \(\Omega(G)\). For a commutative ring \(A\) define a prestring on \(A\) to be an almost finite \(G\)-set and a map from orbits of \(X\) to \(A\). Define a string to be an equivalence class of prestrings for a natural equivalence relation. This way we obtain the semiring (with cancellation property) of strings and the associated ring is denoted by \(F_ G(A)\). Theorem 1 will show that \(F\) is the unique covariant functor such that \(F_ G(A)\) is the Burnside ring of \(G\)-strings with coefficients in \(A\). Defining now a morphism \(\psi_ G\) related to the ghost map (\(\varphi\) in the Dress-Siebeneicher paper) theorem 3 shows that \(W_ G(A)\) is isomorphic to \(F_ G(A)/\ker(\psi_ G)\) and proves the functoriality and some basic properties of this construction. A clearing algorithm analogous to that of Metropolis and Rota is used to get a set of generators for …
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 13K05
zbMATH DE Number: 404263
zbMATH Keywords: Witt vectors
zbMATH Keywords: Burnside-Witt ring
zbMATH Keywords: clearing algorithm
MaRDI profile type: MaRDI publication profile
full work available at URL: aima.1993.1025
OpenAlex ID: W1999235092
DOI: 10.1006/AIMA.1993.1025
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 404263