English

Involutive Brauer groups and Poincar\'e rings

Algebraic Geometry 2025-10-01 v1 Commutative Algebra Algebraic Topology Rings and Algebras

Abstract

We use the formalism of Poincar\'e \infty -categories, as developed by Calm\`es-Dotto-Harpaz-Hebestreit-Land-Moi-Nardin-Nikolaus-Steimle, to define and study moduli stacks of line bundles with λ \lambda -hermitian pairings and of Morita equivalence classes of Azumaya algebras equipped with an involution. Our moduli spaces give rise to enhancements of the ordinary Picard and Brauer groups which incorporate the data of an involution on the base; we will refer to these new invariants as the Poincar\'e Picard group and the Poincar\'e Brauer group. We show that we can recover the involutive Brauer group of Parimala-Srinivas from the Poincar\'e Brauer group when the former is defined; however, they no longer agree even for closed points due to the existence of shifted perfect pairings. A natural context for Poincar\'e Picard and Poincar\'e Brauer groups is a category of highly structured ring spectra which we refer to as Poincar\'e rings. We also compute these invariants for the sphere spectrum and other examples. As a consequence, we deduce a derived enhancement of a classical theorem of Saltman.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.25737,
  title  = {Involutive Brauer groups and Poincar\'e rings},
  author = {Viktor Burghardt and Noah Riggenbach and Lucy Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.25737},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

95 pages, comments welcome!