English

On Hopkins' Picard group

Algebraic Topology 2025-12-24 v2 Algebraic Geometry Number Theory

Abstract

We compute the algebraic Picard group of the category of K(n)K(n)-local spectra, for all heights nn and all primes pp. In particular, we show that it is always finitely generated over Zp\mathbb{Z}_p and, whenever n2n \geq 2, is of rank 22, thereby confirming a prediction made by Hopkins in the early 1990s. In fact, with the exception of the anomalous case n=p=2n=p=2, we provide a full set of topological generators for these groups. Our arguments rely on recent advances in pp-adic geometry to translate the problem to a computation on Drinfeld's symmetric space, which can then be solved using results of Colmez--Dospinescu--Niziol.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2407.20958,
  title  = {On Hopkins' Picard group},
  author = {Tobias Barthel and Tomer M. Schlank and Nathaniel Stapleton and Jared Weinstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.20958},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

47 pages; revised version following referee reports, comments are welcome

R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:58:23.111Z