English

Reduced points of $\mathbb{E}_{\infty}$-rings in positive characteristic

Algebraic Topology 2025-08-19 v1

Abstract

We investigate whether an arbitrary non-zero E\mathbb{E}_\infty-ring AA admits a reduced point, meaning an E\mathbb{E}_\infty-map ATA\to T such that πT\pi_{\ast}T is a graded field. We show that if 2π0A2\in \pi_0A is not invertible, then AA admits a reduced point and as an application deduce that a free AA-module on nn generators cannot be built from n1n-1 many cells. Perhaps surprisingly, the existence of reduced points completely fails at odd primes. More precisely, for any prime p>2p>2, we construct a non-zero E\mathbb{E}_\infty-ring over Fp\mathbb{F}_p which admits no map to an E2\mathbb{E}_2-algebra TT such that π0T\pi_0T is a field.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.12462,
  title  = {Reduced points of $\mathbb{E}_{\infty}$-rings in positive characteristic},
  author = {Florian Riedel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.12462},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

27 pages, comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:53:54.376Z