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# Witt vectors and Tambara Functors

## Introduction

In \[Wi\] Witt constructed an endofunctor on the category of commutative rings, which takes a commutative ring $`R`$ to the ring $`𝕎_p(R)`$ of $`p`$-typical Witt vectors. This construction can be used to construct field extensions of the $`p`$-adic numbers \[SW\], and it is essential in the construction of crystalline cohomology \[Be\]. In \[DS\] Dress and Siebeneicher constructed for every pro-finite group $`G`$ an endofunctor $`𝕎_G`$ on the category of commutative rings. In the case where $`G=\widehat{C}_p`$ is the pro-$`p`$-completion of the infinite cyclic group the functors $`𝕎_p`$ and $`𝕎_G`$ agree. The functor $`𝕎_G`$ is constructed in such a way that $`𝕎_G()`$ is an appropriately completed Burnside ring for the pro-finite group $`G`$. For an arbitrary commutative ring $`R`$, the ring $`𝕎_G(R)`$ is somewhat mysterious, even when $`G=\widehat{C}_p`$. The first aim of the present paper is to give a new description of the ring $`𝕎_G(R)`$ when $`R`$ is a polynomial algebra over the integers. In the special case where $`G`$ is finite our description is given in terms of a category $`U^G`$ introduced by Tambara in \[Ta\]. The category $`U^G`$ has as objects the class of finite $`G`$-sets, and the morphism set $`U^G(X,Y)`$ is constructed as follows: Let $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$ denote the set of equivalence classes of chains of $`G`$-maps of the form $`XABY`$, where two chains $`XABY`$ and $`XA^{}B^{}Y`$ are defined to be equivalent if there exist $`G`$-bijections $`AA^{}`$ and $`BB^{}`$ making the following diagram commutative:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}X& & A& & B& & Y\\ & & & & & & & & \\ X& & A^{}& & B^{}& & Y.\end{array}$$

The set $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$ has a natural semi-ring-structure described in 1.2. By group-completing the underlying additive monoid of $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$ we obtain a commutative ring, and we define $`U^G(X,Y)`$ to be the set obtained by forgetting the ring-structure. For a subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ we let $`G/H`$ denote the $`G`$-set of left cosets of$`H`$ in $`G`$, and we let $`G/e`$ denote $`G`$ considered as a left $`G`$-set. The following theorem is a special case of theorem 5.5.

###### Theorem A.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`X`$ be a finite set considered as a $`G`$-set with trivial action. The ring $`U^G(X,G/e)`$ is the polynomial ring $`[X]`$ over $``$, with one indeterminate for each element in $`X`$, and the ring $`U^G(X,G/G)`$ is naturally isomorphic to the ring $`𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))=𝕎_G([X])`$.

Our second aim is to advertise the category of $`G`$-Tambara functors, that is, the category $`[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of set-valued functors on $`U^G`$ preserving finite products. Tambara calls such a functor a $`\mathrm{TNR}`$-functor, an acronym for “functor with trace, norm and restriction”, but we have chosen to call them $`G`$-Tambara functors. This category is intimately related to the Witt vectors of Dress and Siebeneicher. In order to explain this relation we consider the full subcategory $`U^{fG}`$ of $`U^G`$ with free $`G`$-sets as objects, and we note that the category of $`fG`$-Tambara functors, that is, the category $`[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of set-valued functors on $`U^{fG}`$ preserving finite products is equivalent to the category of commutative rings with an action of $`G`$ through ring-automorphisms. The categories $`U^G`$ and $`U^{fG}`$ are coloured theories in the sense of Boardman and Vogt \[BV\], and therefore they are complete and cocomplete, and the forgetful functor $`[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ induced by the inclusion $`U^{fG}U^G`$ has a left adjoint functor, which we shall denote by $`L_G`$.

###### Theorem B.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group. If $`R`$ is a commutative ring with $`G`$ acting trivially, then for every subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$, there is a natural isomorphism $`𝕎_H(R)L_GR(G/H)`$.

We are also able to describe the ring $`L_GR(G/H)`$ in the case where $`G`$ acts nontrivially on $`R`$. In order to do this we need to introduce an ideal $`𝕀_G(R)`$ of $`𝕎_G(R)=R^{\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)}`$, where $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$ is the set of conjygacy classes of subgroups of $`G`$. An element $`a𝕎_G(R)`$ is of the form $`a=(a_H)_{HG}^{}`$, where the prime means that $`a_H=a_{gHg^1}R`$ for $`HG`$ and $`gG`$. We let $`𝕀_G(R)𝕎_G(R)`$ denote the ideal generated by elements of the form $`ab`$, where $`a=(a_K)_{KG}^{}`$ and $`b=(b_K)_{KG}^{}`$ satisfy that for every $`KG`$ there exist $`n1`$ and $`g_{1,K},\mathrm{}g_{n,K}N_K(G)`$ and $`a_{1,K},\mathrm{},a_{n,K}R`$ such that firstly $`g_{1,K}K=\mathrm{}=g_{n,K}K`$ and secondly $`a_K=a_{1,K}\mathrm{}a_{n,K}`$ and $`b_K=(g_{1,K}a_{1,K})\mathrm{}(g_{n,K}a_{n,K}`$). Our description of $`L_GR(G/H)`$ is formulated in the following generalization of theorem B:

###### Theorem C.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`R`$ be a commutative ring with an action of $`G`$. There is a natural isomorphism $`𝕎_H(R)/𝕀_H(R)(L_GR)(G/H)`$.

Let us stress that in our setup the above result only makes sense for a finite group. For a pro-finite group $`G`$ it might be possible to construct appropriate variants $`\widehat{U}^G(X,Y)`$ of the rings $`U^G(X,Y)`$ such that the the ring $`\widehat{U}^G(X,G/G)`$ is naturally isomorphic to $`𝕎_G([X])`$. We shall not go further into this here.

There have been given other combinatorial constructions of the Witt vectors by Metropolis and Rota \[MR\] and Graham \[Gra\]. The ring of Witt vectors has been related to the ring of necklaces by Dress and Siebeneicher in \[DS2\]. Our combinatorial description differs from the previous ones mostly in that it is forced by some additional structure on the Witt vectors.

It is our belief that the category of $`G`$-Tambara functors has applications yet to be discovered. There is a rich supply of them coming from equivariant stable homotopy theory. In fact, every $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ ring $`G`$-spectrum gives rise to a $`G`$-Tambara functor by taking the zeroth homotopy group \[Br\]. In the case where $`G=e`$ is the trivial group, the category of $`G`$-Tambara functors is equivalent to the category of commutative rings. It is well known that every commutative ring can be realized as the zeroth homotopy group of an $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ ring-spectrum. For an arbitrary group $`G`$ one may speculate whether $`G`$-Tambara functors can be realized as the zeroth homotopy group of an $`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ ring-spectrum with an action of $`G`$.

Some concepts from commutative algebra can be carried over to the setting of $`G`$-Tambara functors. Most notably, the notions of an ideals, modules and chain complexes have $`G`$-Tambara versions. We leave these concepts to future work.

The paper is organized as follows: In section 1 we have collected some of the results from the papers \[DS\] and \[Ta\] that we need in the rest of the paper. In section 2 we note that the category of Tambara functors is the category of algebras for a coloured theory. In section 3 we construct a homomorphism relating Witt vectors and Tambara functors, which we have chosen to call the Teichmüller homomorphism. In section 4 we prove the fundamental fact that the Teichmüller homomorphism is a ring-homomorphism. In section 5 we prove that for free Tambara functors, the Teichmüller homomorphism is an isomorphism, and finally in section 6 we prove theorem C.

## 1. Prerequisites

In this section we fix some notation and recollect results from \[DS\] and \[Ta\]. All rings are supposed to be both commutative and unital. Given a group $`G`$ we only consider left actions of $`G`$. A $`G`$-ring is a ring with an action of the group $`G`$ through ring-automorphisms.

Given a pro-finite group $`G`$ we let $`𝒪(G)`$ denote the $`G`$-set of open subgroups of $`G`$ with action given by conjugation and we let $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$ denote the set of conjugacy classes of open subgroups of $`G`$. For a $`G`$-set $`X`$ and a subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ we define $`|X^H|`$ to be the cardinality of the set $`X^H`$ of $`H`$-invariant elements of $`X`$. The following is the main result of \[DS\].

###### Theorem 1.1.

Let $`G`$ be a pro-finite group. There exists a unique endofunctor $`𝕎_G`$ on the category of rings such that for a ring $`R`$ the ring $`𝕎_G(R)`$ has the set $`R^{\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)}`$ of maps from the set $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$ to $`R`$ as underlying set, in such a way that for every ring-homomorphism $`h:RR^{}`$ and every $`x𝕎_G(R)`$ one has $`𝕎_G(h)(x)=hx`$, while for any subgroup $`U`$ of $`G`$ the family of $`G`$-maps

$$\varphi _U^R:𝕎_G(R)R$$

defined by

$$x=(x_V)_{VG}^{}\underset{UVG}{\overset{}{}}|U(G/V)^U|x_V^{(V:U)}$$

provides a natural transformation from the functor $`𝕎_G`$ into the identity functor. Here $`UV`$ means that the subgroup $`U`$ of $`G`$ is subconjugate to $`V`$, i.e., there exists some $`gG`$ with $`UgVg^1`$, $`(V:U)`$ means the index of $`U`$ in $`gVG^1`$ which coincides with $`(G:U)/(G:V)`$ and therefore is independent of $`g`$, and the symbol “$`^{}`$” is meant to indicate that for each conjugacy class of subgroups $`V`$ with $`UV`$ exactly one summand is taken, and an element $`a𝕎_G(R)`$ is written on the form $`a=(a_V)_{VG}^{}`$, where the prime means that $`a_V=a_{gVg^1}`$ for $`gG`$.

In the section 3 we shall reprove theorem 1.1.

The rest of this section is a recollection of the work \[Ta\] of Tambara. We let $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}`$ denote the category of finite sets and we let $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ denote the category of finite $`G`$-sets. Given a finite $`G`$-set $`X`$ we denote by $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G/X`$ the category of objects over $`X`$ in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$. Given $`f:XY`$ in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ the pull-back functor

$`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G/Y`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G/X`$
$`(BY)`$ $``$ $`(X\times _YBX)`$
has a right adjoint

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_f:\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^U/X`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G/Y`$
$`(A\stackrel{𝑝}{}X)`$ $``$ $`(\mathrm{\Pi }_fA\stackrel{\mathrm{\Pi }_fp}{}Y),`$
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }_fp`$ is made from $`p`$ as follows. For each $`yY`$, the fibre $`(\mathrm{\Pi }_fp)^1(y)`$ is the set of maps $`s:f^1(y)A`$ such that $`p(s(x))=x`$ for all $`xf^1(y)`$. If $`gG`$ and $`s(\mathrm{\Pi }_fp)^1(y)`$, the map $`{}_{}{}^{g}s:f^1(gy)A`$ taking $`x`$ to $`gs(g^1x)`$ belongs to $`(\mathrm{\Pi }_fp)^1(gy)`$. The operation $`(g,s)^gs`$ makes $`\mathrm{\Pi }_fA`$ a $`G`$-set and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_fp`$ a $`G`$-map.

There is a commutative diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}X& \stackrel{p}{}& A& \stackrel{e}{}& X\times _Y\mathrm{\Pi }_fA\\ f& & & & f^{}& & \\ Y& \stackrel{\mathrm{\Pi }_fp}{}& \mathrm{\Pi }_fA& =& \mathrm{\Pi }_fA,\end{array}$$

where $`f^{}`$ is the projection and $`e`$ is the evaluation map $`(x,s)s(x)`$. A diagram in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ which is isomorphic to a diagram of the above form is called an exponential diagram.

We say that two diagrams $`XABY`$ and $`XA^{}B^{}Y`$ in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ are equivalent if there exist $`G`$-isomorphisms $`AA^{}`$, $`BB^{}`$ making the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}X& & A& & B& & Y\\ & & & & & & & & \\ X& & A^{}& & B^{}& & Y\end{array}$$

commutative, and we let $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$ be the set of the equivalence classes $`[XABY]`$ of diagrams $`XABY`$.

Tambara defines an operation $`:U_+^G(Y,Z)\times U_+^G(X,Y)U_+^G(X,Z)`$ by

$$[YCDZ][XABY]=[XA^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{~}{D}Z],$$

where the maps on the right are composites of the maps in the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}X& & A& & A^{}& & A^{\prime \prime }\\ & & & & & & & & \\ & & B& & B^{}& & \stackrel{~}{C}\\ & & & & & & & & \\ & & Y& & C& & \stackrel{~}{C}\\ & & & & & & & & \\ & & Z& & D& & \stackrel{~}{D}.\end{array}$$

Here the three squares are pull-back diagrams and the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}C& & B^{}& & \stackrel{~}{C}\\ & & & & & & \\ D& & \stackrel{~}{D}& =& \stackrel{~}{D}\end{array}$$

is an exponential diagram. He verifies that $`U_+^G`$ is a category with $``$ as commposition and given $`f:XY`$ in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ he introduces the notation

$`R_f`$ $`=`$ $`[Y\stackrel{𝑓}{}X\stackrel{=}{}X\stackrel{=}{}X],`$
$`T_f`$ $`=`$ $`[X\stackrel{=}{}X\stackrel{=}{}X\stackrel{𝑓}{}Y]\text{and}`$
$`N_f`$ $`=`$ $`[X\stackrel{=}{}X\stackrel{𝑓}{}Y\stackrel{=}{}Y].`$
Every morphism in $`U_+^G`$ is a composition of morphisms on the above form. He also shows that every object $`X`$ of $`U_+^G`$ is a semi-ring object in the following natural way:

###### Proposition 1.2.

Given objects $`X`$ and $`Y`$ in $`U_+^G`$, there is semi-ring-structure on $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$ given as follows:

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`[X\mathrm{}\mathrm{}Y],`$
$`1`$ $`=`$ $`[X\mathrm{}YY],`$
$`[XABY]+[XA^{}B^{}Y]`$ $`=`$ $`[XAA^{}BB^{}Y]`$
and

$$\begin{array}{c}[XABY][XA^{}B^{}Y]=\hfill \\ \hfill [XB\times _YA^{}A\times _YB^{}B\times _YB^{}Y].\end{array}$$

It is also shown in \[Ta\] that there is a unique category $`U^G`$ satisfying the following conditions:

1. $`\mathrm{ob}U^G=\mathrm{ob}U_+^G`$
2. The morphism set $`U^G(X,Y)`$ is the group completion of the underlying additive monoid of $`U_+^G(X,Y)`$.
3. The group completion maps $`k:U_+^G(X,Y)U^G(X,Y)`$ and the identity on $`\mathrm{ob}(U_+^G)`$ form a functor $`k:U_+^GU^G`$.
4. The functor $`k`$ preserves finite products.

###### Proposition 1.3.

(i) If $`X_1\stackrel{i_1}{}X\stackrel{i_2}{}X_2`$ is a sum diagram in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$, then $`X_1\stackrel{R_{i_1}}{}X\stackrel{R_{i_2}}{}X_2`$ is a product diagram in $`U^G`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ is final in $`U^G`$.

(ii) Let $`X`$ be a $`G`$-set and $`:XXX`$ the folding map, $`i:\mathrm{}X`$ the unique map. Then $`X`$ has a structure of a ring object of $`U^G`$ with addition $`T_{}`$, additive unit $`T_i`$, multiplication $`N_{}`$ and multiplicative unit $`N_i`$.

(iii) If $`f:XY`$ is a $`G`$-map, then the morphisms $`R_f`$, $`T_f`$ and $`N_f`$ of $`U^G`$ preserve the above structures of ring, additive group and multiplicative monoid on $`X`$ and $`Y`$, respectively.

Given a category $`𝒞`$ with finite products, we shall denote the category of set-valued functors on $`𝒞`$ preserving finite products by $`[𝒞,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$. The morphisms in $`[𝒞,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ are given by natural transformations.

###### Definition 1.4.

The category of $`G`$-Tambara functors is the category $`[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$. That is, a $`G`$-Tambara functor (called $`\mathrm{TNR}`$-functor in \[Ta\]) is a set-valued functor on $`U^G`$ preserving finite products, and a morphism of $`G`$-Tambara functors is a natural transformation.

Given a $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ and $`[XABY]U^G(X,Y)`$ we obtain a function $`S[XABY]:S(X)S(Y)`$. Since $`S`$ is product-preserving, it follows from (ii) of proposition 1.3 that $`S(X)`$ is a ring. Given a finite $`G`$-map $`f:XY`$ we shall use the notation $`S^{}(f)=S(R_f)`$, $`S_+(f)=S(T_f)`$ and $`S_{}(f)=S(N_f)`$. It follows from (iii) of 1.3 that $`S^{}(f)`$ is a ring-homomorphism, that $`S_+(f)`$ is an additive homomorphism and that $`S_{}(f)`$ is multiplicative. A $`G`$-Tamara functor $`S`$ is uniquely determined by the functions $`S^{}(f)`$, $`S_+(f)`$ and $`S_{}(f)`$ for all $`f:XY`$ in $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$.

Given subgroups $`KHG`$ we shall denote by $`\pi _K^H:G/KG/H`$ the projection induced by the inclusion $`KH`$ and given $`gG`$ we shall let $`c_g:G/HG/gHg^1`$ denote conjugation by $`g`$, $`c_g(\sigma H)=\sigma g^1(gHg^1)`$.

## 2. Coloured theories

In this section we shall explain that the category $`U^G`$ is an $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured category in the sense of Boardman and Vogt \[BV\].

###### Definition 2.1 (\[BV, 2.3,\]).

1. Let $`𝒪`$ be a finite set. An $`𝒪`$-coloured theory is a category $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ together with a faithful functor $`\sigma _\mathrm{\Theta }:(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}/𝒪)^{\mathrm{op}}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ such that firstly $`\sigma _\mathrm{\Theta }`$ preserves finite products and secondly every object of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is isomorphic to an object in the image of $`\sigma _\mathrm{\Theta }`$.
2. The category of algebras over a theory $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the category $`[\mathrm{\Theta },\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of product-preserving set-valued functors on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

A morphism $`\gamma :\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of $`𝒪`$-coloured theories is a functor preserving finite products.

Other authors, e.g. \[AR\] and \[Re\], use the name “sorted theory” for a coloured theory.

Given a finite group $`G`$, choosing representatives $`G/H`$ for the objects of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$, we can construct a functor

$`\sigma _{(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}}:(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}/\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G))^{\mathrm{op}}`$ $``$ $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}},`$
$`(z:Z\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G))`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{[G/H]\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)}{}}G/H\times z^1([G/H]).`$
This way we give $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}`$ the structure of an $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theory. Composing $`\sigma _{(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}}`$ with the functor $`R:(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}U^G`$, $`fR_f`$ we obtain by (i) of 1.3 a functor $`\sigma _{U^G}:(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}/\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G))^{\mathrm{op}}U^G`$ preserving finite products, and we obtain a structure of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theory on $`U^G`$. The functor $`R`$ is a morphism of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theories.

Let $`V^GU^G`$ denote the subcategory of $`U^G`$ with the same class of objects as $`U^G`$ and with $`V^G(X,Y)U^G(X,Y)`$ given by the subgroup generated by morphisms of the form $`[XA\stackrel{=}{}AY]`$. The inclusion $`V^GU^G`$ preserves finite products, and we have morphisms $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}V^GU^G`$ of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theories. The category $`V^G`$ is strongly related to the category spans considered by Lindner in \[Li\], and in fact the category of Mackey functors is equal to the category of $`V^G`$-algebras. Let $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG}`$ denote the full subcategory of $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ with finite free $`G`$-sets as objects. The functor

$$\sigma _{(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}}}:(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}/\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G))^{\mathrm{op}}(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}},(z:Z\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G))G/e\times z^1([G/e])$$

gives $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}}`$ the structure of an $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theory. Similarly we can consider the $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theories given by the full subcategories $`U^{fG}U^G`$ and $`V^{fG}V^G`$ with finite free $`G`$-sets as objects. We have the following diagram of morphisms of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theories:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}}& & V^{fG}& & U^{fG}\\ & & & & & & \\ (\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}& & V^G& & U^G,\end{array}$$

where the vertical functors are inclusions of full subcategories.

###### Lemma 2.2.

1. The category $`[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of $`fG`$-Tambara functors is equivalent to the category of $`G`$-rings.
2. The category $`[V^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of $`V^{fG}`$-algebras is equivalent to the category of left $`[G]`$-modules.
3. The category $`[(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}}`$-algebras is equivalent to the category of $`G`$-sets.

###### Proof.

Since the statements have similar proofs we only give the proof of (i). Given an $`fG`$-Tambara functor $`S`$, we construct a $`G`$-ring-structure on $`R=S(G/e)`$. Indeed by (ii) of 1.3 $`S(G/e)`$ is a ring, and given $`gG`$ the right multiplication $`g:G/eG/e`$, $`xxg`$, induces a ring-automorphism $`S^{}(g^1)`$ of $`R=S(G/e)`$. From the functoriality of $`S`$ we obtain that $`R`$ is a $`G`$-ring. Conversely, given a $`G`$-ring $`R^{}`$ we shall construct an $`fG`$-Tambara functor $`S^{}`$. We define $`S^{}(X)`$ to be the set of $`G`$-maps from $`X`$ to $`R^{}`$. Given $`[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\stackrel{𝑓}{}B\stackrel{𝑔}{}Y]U^G(X,Y)`$, we define $`S^{}[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\stackrel{𝑓}{}B\stackrel{𝑔}{}Y]:S^{}(X)S^{}(Y)`$ by the formula

$$S^{}[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\stackrel{𝑓}{}B\stackrel{𝑔}{}Y](\varphi )(y)=\underset{bg^1(y)}{}(\underset{af^1(b)}{}\varphi (d(a)))$$

for $`\varphi S^{}(X)`$ and $`yY`$. We leave it to the reader to check that $`SR`$ and $`R^{}S^{}`$ are inverse functors up to isomorphism. ∎

We refer to \[Re, Propositions 4.3 and 4.7.\] for a proof of the following two results. Alternatively the reader may modify the proofs given in \[Bo, 3.4.5 and 3.7.7\] for their monocrome versions.

###### Proposition 2.3.

Let $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ be an $`𝒪`$-coloured theory. The category of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$-algebras is complete and cocomplete.

###### Proposition 2.4.

Given a morphism $`\gamma :\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of $`𝒪`$-coloured theories, the functor $`\gamma ^{}:[\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[\mathrm{\Theta },\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$, $`AA\gamma `$ has a left adjoint $`\gamma _{}:[\mathrm{\Theta },\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$.

###### Definition 2.5.

The category of $`fG`$-Tambara functors is the category $`[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of $`U^{fG}`$-algebras.

###### Definition 2.6.

We let $`L_G=i_{}:[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ denote the left adjoint of the functor $`i^{}:[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ induced by the inculsion $`i:U^{fG}U^G`$.

Let us note that $`L_G`$ can be constructed as the left Kan extension along $`i`$, and that for $`R[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$, we have for every finite free $`G`$-set $`X`$ an isomorphism $`L_GR(X)R(X)`$ because $`U^{fG}`$ is a full subcategory of $`U^G`$.

## 3. The Teichmüller homomorphism

We shall now give a connection between the category of $`G`$-Tambara functors and the category of rings with an action of $`G`$. Recall that $`U^{fG}`$ denotes the full subcategory of $`U^G`$ with objects given by free $`G`$-sets. Below we use notation introduced in 1.1.

###### Definition 3.1.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`S`$ be a $`G`$-Tambara functor. The unrestricted Teichmüller homomorphism $`t:𝕎_G(S(G/e))S(G/G)`$ takes $`(x_U)_{UG}^{}𝕎_G(S(G/e))`$ to

$$t((x_U)_{UG}^{})=\underset{UG}{\overset{}{}}S_+(\pi _U^G)S_{}(\pi _e^U)(x_U).$$

We shall prove the following proposition in the next section.

###### Proposition 3.2.

The unrestricted Teichmüller homomorphism $`t:𝕎_G(S(G/e))S(G/G)`$ is a ring-homomorphism.

In general $`t`$ will neither be injective nor surjective. However, in the introduction, we have given an ideal $`𝕀_G(S(G/e))𝕎_G(S(G/e))`$ contained in the kernel of $`t`$:

###### Definition 3.3.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`R`$ be a commutative ring with an action of $`G`$. We let $`𝕀_G(R)𝕎_G(R)`$ denote the ideal generated by elements of the form $`ab`$, where $`a=(a_K)_{KG}^{}`$ and $`b=(b_K)_{KG}^{}`$ satisfy that for every $`KG`$ there exist $`n1`$ and $`g_{1,K},\mathrm{}g_{n,K}N_K(G)`$ and $`a_{1,K},\mathrm{},a_{n,K}R`$ such that firstly $`g_{1,K}K=\mathrm{}=g_{n,K}K`$ and secondly $`a_K=a_{1,K}\mathrm{}a_{n,K}`$ and $`b_K=(g_{1,K}a_{1,K})\mathrm{}(g_{n,K}a_{n,K}`$).

###### Lemma 3.4.

Let $`S`$ be a $`G`$-Tambara functor. The unrestricted Teichmüller homomorphism $`t:𝕎_G(S(G/e))S(G/G)`$ maps the ideal $`𝕀_G(S(G/e))`$ to zero.

###### Proof.

It suffices to consider the case where $`a_U=0`$ for $`UK`$. We have that

$`S_+(\pi _K^G)S_{}(\pi _e^K)(g_1a_1\mathrm{}g_na_n)`$
$`=`$ $`S[{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}}G/e\stackrel{{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}g_i}{}{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}}G/e\stackrel{\pi _e^K}{}G/K\stackrel{\pi _K^G}{}G/G](a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)`$
$`=`$ $`S[{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}}G/e\stackrel{=}{}{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}}G/e\stackrel{\pi _e^K}{}G/K\stackrel{\pi _K^G}{}G/G](a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)`$
$`=`$ $`S_+(\pi _K^G)S_{}(\pi _e^K)(a_1\mathrm{}a_n),`$
where $`:_1^nG/eG/e`$ is the fold map. ∎

###### Definition 3.5.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`S`$ be a $`G`$-Tambara functor. The Teichmüller homomorphism $`\tau :𝕎_G(S(G/e))/𝕀_G(S(G/e))S(G/G)`$ is the ring-homomorphism induced by the unreduced Teichmüller homomorphism $`t`$.

The following theorem, proved in section 5, implies the case $`H=G`$ of theorem C.

###### Theorem 3.6.

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and let $`R`$ be an $`fG`$-Tambara functor. The Teichmüller homomorphism

$$\tau :𝕎_G(L_GR(G/e))/𝕀_G(L_GR(G/e))L_GR(G/G)$$

is an isomorphism. In particular, if $`G`$ acts trivially on $`R`$, the Teichmüller homomorphism is an isomorphism on the form $`\tau :𝕎_G(L_GR(G/e))L_GR(G/G)`$

In the above situation there is an isomorphism $`L_GR(G/e)R(G/e)`$.

## 4. Witt polynomials

We shall prove the following version of a theorem of Dress and Siebeneicher \[DS, Theorem 3.2\]. As we shall see below, theorem 1.1 and proposition 3.2 are immediate consequences of it.

###### Theorem 4.1.

Given a finite group $`G`$, there exist unique families $`(s_U)_{UG}^{}`$, $`(p_U)_{UG}^{}`$ of integral polynomials

$$s_U=s_U^G,p_U=p_U^G[a_V,b_V|UVG]$$

in two times as many variables $`x_V,y_V`$ $`(UVG)`$ as there are conjugacy classes of subgroups $`VG`$ which contain a conjugate of $`U`$ such that for every $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ and for every $`x=(x_U)_{UG}^{}`$ and $`y=(y_U)_{UG}^{}𝕎_G(S(G/e))`$ we have that

$`\tau (x)+\tau (y)`$ $`=`$ $`\tau ((s_U(x_V,y_V|UVG))_{UG}^{})\text{and}`$
$`\tau (x)\tau (y)`$ $`=`$ $`\tau ((p_U(x_V,y_V|UVG))_{UG}^{}).`$
Similarly, there exist polynomials $`m_U=m_U^G[a_V|UVG]`$ such that for every $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ and for every $`x=(x_U)_{UG}^{}𝕎_G(S(G/e))`$ we have that $`\tau (x)=\tau ((m_U(x_V|UVG^{})_{UG})`$. Further, for every subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ we have that

$`\varphi _H(x)+\varphi _H(y)`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _H((s_U(x_V,y_V|UVG))_{UG}^{})\text{and}`$
$`\varphi _H(x)\varphi _H(y)`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _H((p_U(x_V,y_V|UVG))_{UG}^{}).`$
We shall call the polynomials $`s_U,p_U`$ and $`m_U`$ the Witt polynomials.

###### Proof of theorem 1.1.

We first consider the case where $`G`$ is finite. Given a ring $`R`$, we define operations $`+`$ and $``$ on $`𝕎_G(R)`$ by defining $`(a_U)_{UG}^{}+(b_U)_{UG}^{}:=(s_U(a_V,b_V|UVG))_{UG}^{}`$ and $`(a_U)_{UG}^{}(b_U)_{UG}^{}:=(p_U(a_V,b_V|UVG))_{UG}^{}`$. In the case where $`R`$ has no torsion, the map $`\varphi :𝕎_G(R)_{UG}^{}R`$ with $`U`$’th component $`\varphi _U`$ is injective, and hence $`𝕎_G(R)`$ is a subring of $`_{UG}^{}R`$. In the case where $`R`$ has torsion, we can choose a surjective ring-homomorphism $`R^{}R`$ from a torsion free ring $`R^{}`$. We obtain a surjection $`𝕎_G(R^{})𝕎_G(R)`$ respecting the operations $``$ and $`+`$. Since $`𝕎_G(R^{})`$ is a ring we can conclude that $`𝕎_G(R)`$ is a ring. Given a surjective homomorphism $`\gamma :GG^{}`$ of finite groups we obtain a ring-homomorphism $`\mathrm{restr}_G^{}^G:𝕎_G(R)𝕎_G^{}(R)`$ with $`\mathrm{restr}_G^{}^G((a_U)_{UG}^{})=((b_V)^{})_{VG^{}})`$, where $`b_V=a_{\gamma ^1(V)}`$. (See \[DS, (3.3.11)\].) The easiest way to see that $`\mathrm{restr}_G^{}^G`$ is a ring-homomorphism is to note that $`(\gamma ^1H:\gamma ^1U)=(H:U)`$ and that $`\varphi _{\gamma ^1H}(G/\gamma ^1U)=\varphi _H(G^{}/H)`$. For the case where $`G`$ is a pro-finite group we note that for the ring $`𝕎_G(R)`$ can be defined to be the limit $`lim_N𝕎_{G/N}(R)`$ taken over all finite factor groups $`G/N`$, with respect maps on the form $`\mathrm{restr}_G^{}^G`$. ∎

###### Proof of proposition 3.2.

Proposition 3.2 follows from the first part of theorem 4.1 because we use the Witt polynomials to define the ring-stucture on the Witt vectors. ∎

For the rest of this section we fix a finite group $`G`$. We shall follow \[DS\] closely in the proof of theorem 4.1. For the uniqueness of the Witt polynomials we consider the representable $`G`$-Tambara functor $`\mathrm{\Omega }:=U^G(\mathrm{},)`$. In \[DS, Theorem 2.12.7\] it is shown that $`\tau :_{UG}^{}=𝕎_G(\mathrm{\Omega }(G/e))\mathrm{\Omega }_G()`$ is a bijection. Hence the Witt polynomials are unique. We shall use the following six lemmas to etablish the existence of Witt polynomials with the properties required in theorem 4.1.

###### Lemma 4.2.

For a subset $`A`$ of $`G`$, let $`U_A:=\{gG|Ag=A\}`$ denote its stabilizer group and let $`i_A:=|A/U_A|`$ denote the number of $`U_A`$-orbits in $`A`$. If the set $`𝒰(G)`$ of subsets of $`G`$ is considered as a $`G`$-set via $`G\times 𝒰(G)𝒰(G)`$: $`(g,A)Ag^1`$, then for any $`s,tS(G/e)`$ one has

$$S_{}(\pi _e^G)(s+t)=\underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})(s^{i_A}t^{i_{GA}}).$$

###### Proof.

We let $`i_1,i_2:G/eG/eG/e`$ denote the two natural inclusions. We have an exponential diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}G/e& \stackrel{}{}& G/eG/e& \stackrel{d}{}& G/e\times 𝒰(G)\\ \pi _e^G& & & & \mathrm{pr}& & \\ G/G& & 𝒰(G)& =& 𝒰(G),\end{array}$$

where $`d(g,A)=i_1(g)`$ if $`g^1A`$ and $`d(g,A)=i_2(g)`$ if $`g^1A`$. Since $`𝒰(G)_{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}GA`$, we have that

$`S_{}(\pi _e^G)(s+t)`$
$`=`$ $`S_{}(\pi _e^G)S_+()(s,t)`$
$`=`$ $`S[G/eG/e\stackrel{𝑑}{}G/e\times 𝒰(G)\stackrel{}{}𝒰(G)G/G](s,t)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}}S[G/eG/e\stackrel{𝑑}{}G/e\times GAGAG/G](s,t)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}}S[G/eG/e\stackrel{}{}G/e\times A/U_AG/e\times (GA)/U_AG/U_AG/G](s,t)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}}S[G/e\stackrel{=}{}G/e\stackrel{\pi _e^{U_A}}{}G/U_A\stackrel{\pi _{U_A}^G}{}G/G](s^{i_A}t^{i_{GA}})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})(s^{i_A}t^{i_{GA}}),`$
where the maps without labels are natural projections. ∎

###### Lemma 4.3.

Let $`R`$ be a commutative ring. With the notation of lemma 4.2, we have for every subset $`A`$ and subgroup $`U`$ of $`G`$ and for every $`s,tR`$, that

$$(s+t)^{(G:U)}=\underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}|U(G/U_A)^U|(s^{i_A}t^{i_{GA}})^{(U_A:U)}.$$

###### Proof.

We compute:

$`(s+t)^{(G:U)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{AG/U}{}}s^{|A|}t^{|G/U||A|}={\displaystyle \underset{A𝒰(G),UU_A}{}}s^{|A/U|}t^{|(GA)/U|}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{GAG\backslash 𝒰(G)}{}}|(G/U_A)^U|(s^{i_A}t^{i_{GA}})^{(U_A:U)}.`$
The following lemma is a variation on \[DS, lemma 3.2.5\], and the proof we give here is essentially identical to the one given in \[DS\].

###### Lemma 4.4.

For some $`k`$ let $`V_1,\mathrm{},V_kG`$ be a sequence of subgroups of $`G`$. Then for every subgroup $`UG`$ and every sequence $`\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k\{\pm 1\}`$ there exists a polynomial $`\xi _U=\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)}^G=\xi _U(x_1,\mathrm{},x_k)[x_1,\mathrm{},x_k]`$ such that for every $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ and all $`s_1,\mathrm{},s_kS(G/e)`$ one has

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\epsilon _iS_+(\pi _{V_i}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{V_i})(s_i)=\underset{UG}{\overset{}{}}S_+(\pi _U^G)S_{}(\pi _e^U)(\xi _U(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k)).$$

###### Proof.

If $`\epsilon _1=\epsilon _2=\mathrm{}=\epsilon _k=1`$ and if $`V_i`$ is not conjugate to $`V_j`$ for $`ij`$, then

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\epsilon _iS_+(\pi _{V_i}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{V_i})(s_i)=\underset{UG}{\overset{}{}}S_+(\pi _U^G)S_{}(S_e^U)(s_U),$$

with $`s_U=s_i`$ if $`U`$ is conjugate to $`V_i`$ and $`s_U=0`$ if $`U`$ is not conjugate to any of the $`V_1,\mathrm{},V_k`$. So in this case we are done: $`\xi _U(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k)=s_U`$. We use triple induction to prove the lemma. First with respect to $`m_1=m_1(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k):=\mathrm{max}(|V_i||\epsilon _i=1\text{ or there exists some }ji\text{ with }V_jV_i)`$, then with respect to $`m_3:=|\{i||V_i|=m_1\text{ and there exists some }ji\text{ with }V_jV_i\}|`$ and then with respect to $`m_2:=|\{i||V_i|=m_1\text{ and }\epsilon _i=1\}|`$.

We have just verified that the lemma holds in the case $`m_1=0`$. In case $`m_1>0`$ we have either $`m_2>0`$ or $`m_3>0`$. In case $`m_2>0`$, say $`|V_1|=m_1`$ and $`\epsilon _1=1`$, we may use 4.2 with $`G=V_1`$, $`s=s_1`$, $`t=s_1`$ to conclude that

$$0=\underset{V_1AV_1\backslash 𝒰(V_1)}{}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^{V_1})S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})((1)^{i_A}s_1^{(V_1:U_A)}).$$

Therefore, considering the two special summands $`A=\mathrm{}`$ and $`A=V_1`$ and putting $`𝒰_0(V_1):=\{A𝒰(V_1)|A\mathrm{}\text{ and }AV_1\}`$, one gets

$$S_{}(\pi _e^{V_1})(s_1)=S_{}(\pi _e^{V_1})(s_1)+\underset{V_1AV_1\backslash 𝒰_0(V_1)}{}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^{V_1})S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})((1)^{i_A}s_1^{(V_1:U_A)}).$$

Hence, if $`A_{k+1},A_{k+2},\mathrm{},A_k^{}𝒰_0(V_1)`$ denote representatives of the $`V_1`$-orbits $`V_1A𝒰_0(V_1)`$ and we let $`V_{k+1}:=U_{A_{k+1}},\mathrm{},V_k^{}:=U_{A_k^{}}`$ then $`V_iV_1`$ and $`VV_1`$ for $`ik+1`$. If we put $`\epsilon _{k+1}=\mathrm{}=\epsilon _k^{}=1`$ and $`s_{k+1}:=(1)^{i_{A_{k+1}}}s_1^{(V_1:V_{k+1})},\mathrm{},s_k^{}=(1)^{i_{A_k^{}}}s_1^{(V_1:V_k^{})}`$, then the polynomial

$$\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;1,\epsilon _2,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k)}^G:=\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k^{};1,\epsilon _2,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k^{})(s_1,s_2,\mathrm{},s_k^{})}^G$$

makes the statement of the lemma hold. We can conclude that if the lemma holds for every $`(n_1,n_2,n_3)`$ with either $`n_1<m_1`$ or ($`n_1=m_1`$, $`n_2<m_2`$ and $`n_3m_3`$), then it also holds for $`(m_1,m_2,m_3)`$.

Similarly, if $`m_2=0`$, but $`m_3>0`$, say $`V_1=V_2`$, then we may use lemma 4.2 once more with $`G=V_1`$, $`s=s_1`$, and $`t=s_2`$ to conclude that

$`S_{}(\pi _e^{V_1})(s_1+s_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{V_1AV_1\backslash 𝒰(V_1)}{}}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^{V_1})S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})(s_1^{i_A}s_2^{i_{V_1A}})`$
$`=`$ $`S_{}(\pi _e^{V_1})(s_1)+S_{}(\pi _e^{V_1})(s_2)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{V_1AV_1\backslash 𝒰_0(V_1)}{}}S_+(\pi _{U_A}^{V_1})S_{}(\pi _e^{U_A})(s_1^{i_A}s_2^{i_{V_1A}}),`$
so with $`V_{k+1},\mathrm{},V_k^{}`$ as above, but with $`\epsilon _{k+1}=\mathrm{}=\epsilon _k^{}=1`$ and with $`s_{k+1}:=s_1^{i_{A_{k+1}}}s_2^{i_{V_1A_{k+1}}},\mathrm{},s_k^{}:=s_1^{i_{A_k^{}}}s_2^{i_{V_1A_k^{}}}`$, the polynomial

$$\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k)}^G:=\xi _{(U;V_2,\mathrm{},V_k^{};1,\epsilon _2,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k^{})(s_1+s_2,s_3,\mathrm{},s_k^{})}^G$$

makes the statement of the lemma hold. We can conclude that if the lemma holds for every $`(n_1,n_2,n_3)`$ with either $`n_1<m_1`$ or ($`n_1=m_1`$, $`n_2=m_2=0`$ and $`n_3<m_3`$), then it also holds for $`(m_1,0,m_3)`$. The statement of the lemma now follows by induction first on $`m_1`$, then on $`m_3`$ and finally on $`m_2`$. ∎

###### Lemma 4.5.

Let $`R`$ be a ring. For some $`k`$ let $`V_1,\mathrm{},V_kG`$ be a sequence of subgroups of $`G`$ and let $`\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k\{\pm 1\}`$. For every subgroup $`H`$ of $`G`$ one has, with the notation of lemma 4.4, that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\epsilon _i|(G/V_i)^H|(s_i)^{(V_i:H)}=\underset{UG}{\overset{}{}}|(G/U)^H|(\xi _U(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k))^{(U:H)}.$$

###### Proof.

We use the same notation as in the above proof, and prove the lemma by induction on first $`m_1`$, then on $`m_3`$ and finally on $`m_2`$. Suppose that the lemma holds for every $`(n_1,n_2,n_3)`$ with $`n_1<m_1`$ or $`n_3<m_3`$ or ($`n_1=m_1`$ and $`n_3=m_3`$ and $`n_2<m_2`$), and that we are given $`(V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)`$ with $`m_i=m_i(V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)`$. In the above proof we constructed $`(W_1,\mathrm{},W_k^{};\delta _1,\mathrm{},\delta _k^{})`$ and $`t_1,\mathrm{},t_k^{}R`$ such that $`n_i=n_i(W_1,\mathrm{},W_k^{};\delta _1,\mathrm{},\delta _k^{})`$, $`i=1,2,3`$ are on the form covered by the induction hypothesis, and such that:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}}\epsilon _i|(G/V_i)^H|s_i^{(V_i:H)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k^{}}{}}}\delta _i|(G/W_i)^H|t_i^{(W_i:H)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}|(G/U)^H|(\xi _{(U;W_1,\mathrm{},W_k^{};\delta _1,\mathrm{},\delta _k^{})}^G(t_1,\mathrm{},t_k^{}))^{(U:H)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}|(G/U)^H|(\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _k)}^G(s_1,\mathrm{},s_k))^{(U:H)}.`$
The other cases of the induction are similar. ∎

###### Lemma 4.6.

For every $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$, for every two subgroups $`V,WG`$ and for every $`s,tS(G/e)`$ one has the modified Mackey formula

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\multicolumn{3}{c}{S_+(\pi _V^G)S_{}(\pi _e^V)(s)S_+(\pi _W^G)S_{}(\pi _e^W)(t)}\\ \hfill =\underset{VgWV\backslash G/W}{}S_+(\pi _{VgWg^1}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{VgWg^1})(s^{(V:VgWg^1)}t^{(W:g^1VgW)}).\end{array}$$

###### Proof.

We use the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}& & G/eG/e& \stackrel{\mathrm{pr}_1\mathrm{pr}_2}{}& G/e\times G/WG/V\times G/e\\ & & \pi _e^V\pi _e^W& & \pi _e^V\times \mathrm{id}\mathrm{id}\times \pi _e^W& & \\ G/GG/G& \stackrel{\pi _V^G\pi _W^G}{}& G/VG/W& \stackrel{\mathrm{pr}_1\mathrm{pr}_2}{}& G/V\times G/WG/V\times G/W\\ & & & & & & \\ G/G& & G/V\times G/W& =& G/V\times G/W,\end{array}$$

where $``$ is the fold map, the upper square is a pull-back and the lower rectangle is an exponential diagram. Concatenating with the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccc}G/e\times G/WG/V\times G/e& \underset{}{\overset{\alpha _1\alpha _2}{}}& _{gWG/W}G/e_{VgV\backslash G}G/e\\ \pi _e^V\times \mathrm{id}\mathrm{id}\times \pi _e^W& & & & \\ G/V\times G/WG/V\times G/W& & _{gWG/W}G/e_{VgV\backslash G}G/e\\ & & (\delta _1,\delta _2)& & \\ G/V\times G/W& \underset{}{\overset{\gamma }{}}& _{VgWV\backslash G/W}G/(VgWg^1)\end{array}$$

with maps defined by

$`\alpha _1(gW,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma ,\sigma gW),`$
$`\alpha _2(Vg,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma g^1V,\sigma ),`$
$`\delta _1(gW,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`(VgW,\sigma (VgWg^1)),`$
$`\delta _2(Vg,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`(VgW,\sigma g^1(VgWg^1))\text{and}`$
$`\gamma (VgW,\sigma (VgWg^1))`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma V,\sigma gW),`$
we get that

$`S_+(\pi _V^G)S_{}(\pi _e^V)(s)S_+(\pi _W^G)S_{}(\pi _e^W)(t)`$
$`=`$ $`S[G/eG/e{\displaystyle \underset{gWG/W}{}}G/e{\displaystyle \underset{VgV\backslash G}{}}G/e{\displaystyle \underset{VgWV\backslash G/W}{}}G/(VgWg^1)G/G](s,t)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{VgWV\backslash G/W}{}}S_+(\pi _{VgWg^1}^G)S_{}(\pi _e^{VgWg^1})(s^{(V:VgWg^1)}t^{(W:g^1VgW)}).`$
###### Lemma 4.7 (\[DS, Lemma 3.2.13\]).

For every ring $`R`$, for every three subgroups $`H,V,WG`$ and for every $`s,tR`$ one has the modified Mackey formula

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\multicolumn{3}{c}{|(G/V)^H|s^{(V:H)}|(G/W)^H|t^{(W:H)}}\\ \hfill =\underset{VgWV\backslash G/W}{}|(G/VgWg^1)^H|(s^{(V:VgWg^1)}t^{(W:g^1VgW)})^{(VgWg^1:H)}.\end{array}$$

###### Proof of theorem 4.1.

Let $`G=V_1,V_2,\mathrm{},V_k=U`$ be a system of representatives of subgroups of $`G`$ containing a conjugate of $`U`$. We define

$$s_U^G(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k}):=\xi _{(U;V_1,V_1,\mathrm{},V_k,V_k;1,\mathrm{},1)}^G(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k})$$

and

$$m_U^G(a_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k}):=\xi _{(U;V_1,\mathrm{},V_k;1,\mathrm{},1)}^G(a_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k}).$$

By the lemmas 4.4 and 4.5 these are integral polynomials with the desired properties. For example, for $`UG`$ we have that

$`\varphi _U(a)+\varphi _U(b)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}}|(G/V_i)^U|(a_{V_i}^{(V_i:U)}+b_{V_i}^{(V_i:U)})`$
$`=`$ $`\varphi _U(\xi _{(U;V_1,V_1,\mathrm{},V_k,V_k;1,\mathrm{},1)}(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k}))`$
$`=`$ $`\varphi _U(s_U(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k})).`$
To construct $`p_U=p_U^G`$ we first choose a system $`x_1,x_2\mathrm{},x_h`$ of representatives of the $`G`$-orbits in

$$X:=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{k}{}}G/V_i\times G/V_j.$$

Next we put $`W_r:=G_{x_r}`$ and

$$p_r=p_r(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k}):=a_i^{(V_i:W_r)}b_j^{(V_j:W_r)}$$

in case $`x_r=(g_rV_i,g_r^{}V_j)G/V_i\times G/V_jX`$. Using these conventions, we define

$$p_U^G(a_{V_1},b_{V_1},\mathrm{},a_{V_k},b_{V_k}):=\xi _{(U;W_1,\mathrm{},W_h;1,\mathrm{},1)}^G(p_1,\mathrm{},p_r).$$

Using the lemmas 4.6 and 4.7 we see that $`p_U`$ has the desired properties. ∎

## 5. Free Tambara functors

In this section we give a proof of theorem 3.6. On the way we shall give a combinatorial description of the Witt vectors of a polynomial $`G`$-ring, that is, a $`G`$-ring of the form $`U^G(X,G/e)`$ for a finite $`G`$-set $`X`$. Recall from 2.2 that the functor $`RR(G/e)`$ from the category $`[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ of $`fG`$-Tambara functors to the category of $`G`$-rings is an equivalence of categories, and that there are morphisms $`(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^{fG})^{\mathrm{op}}(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}}\stackrel{𝑅}{}U^G`$ of $`\underset{¯}{𝒪}(G)`$-coloured theories. We let $`F:\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G[(\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G)^{\mathrm{op}},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ denote the left adjoint of the forgetful functor induced by the above composition of morphisms of coloured theories.

###### Definition 5.1.

Given finite $`G`$-sets $`X`$ and $`Y`$ we let $`\stackrel{~}{U}_+^G(X,Y)\overline{U}^G(X,Y)`$ denote those elements of the form $`XABY`$, where $`G`$ acts freely on $`A`$, and we let $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,Y)U^G(X,Y)`$ denote the abelian subgroup generated by $`\stackrel{~}{U}_+^G(X,Y)`$. The composition

$$U^G(Y,Z)\times \stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,Y)\stackrel{~}{U}^G(Y,Z)\times U^G(X,Y)U^G(Y,Z)\times U^G(X,Y)\stackrel{}{}U^G(X,Z)$$

factors through the inclusion $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,Z)U^G(X,Z)`$. We obtain a functor $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G:\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G(f:YX)=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(R_f,)`$.

###### Lemma 5.2.

Given a $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ and a finite free $`G`$-set $`A`$, there is an isomorphism $`\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(A,S(G/e))\stackrel{}{}S^{}(A)`$, which is natural in $`A`$.

###### Proof.

Choosing an isomorphism $`\varphi :A\stackrel{}{}G/e\times A_0`$ we obtain an isomorphism

$`\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(A,S(G/e))`$ $`\stackrel{\varphi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}}{}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(G/e\times A_0,S(G/e))`$
$``$ $`\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}(A_0,S(G/e))S(G/e\times A_0)\stackrel{S^{}(\varphi )}{}S(A).`$
This isomorphism is independent of the choise of $`\varphi `$. ∎

###### Lemma 5.3.

Given a finite $`G`$-set $`X`$ we have that $`FX\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,)`$.

###### Proof.

For every $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ we shall construct a bijection

$$\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(X,S(G/e))[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0(\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,),S).$$

Given $`f:XS(G/e)\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(X,S(G/e))`$ we let $`\varphi (f)[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0(\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,),S)`$ take $`x=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\stackrel{𝑏}{}B\stackrel{𝑐}{}Y]\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,Y)`$ to $`\varphi (f)(x)S(Y)`$ constructed as follows: by 5.2 we obtain an element $`aS(A)`$, and we let $`\varphi (f)(x)=S_+(c)S_{}(b)(a)`$. Conversely, given $`g[U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0(\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,x),S)`$, we construct $`\psi (g)\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G(X,S(G/e))`$ by letting $`\psi (g)(x)=[XG/eG/eG/e]`$, where the map pointing left takes $`eG`$ to $`xX`$ and where the maps pointing right are identity maps. We leave it to the reader to check that $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are inverse bijections. ∎

###### Corollary 5.4.

For every finite $`G`$-set $`X`$ the functor $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,):U^G\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}`$ is isomorphic to $`L_GU^G(X,G/e)`$.

###### Theorem 5.5.

Let $`X`$ be a finite $`G`$-set and let $`R=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,)`$. Then $`R(G/e)=U^G(X,G/e)`$, and the Teichmüller homomorphism

$$\tau :𝕎_G(L_GR(G/e))/𝕀_G(L_GR(G/e))L_GR(G/G)=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)$$

is an isomorphism.

###### Proof of theorem B.

Let $`X`$ be a set with trivial action of $`G`$. The polynomial ring $`[X]`$ has the universal property that determines the left adjoint of the forgetful functor from rings with an action of $`G`$ to $`\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}^G`$ up to isomorphism. Hence $`[X]\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/e)=U^G(X,G/e)`$. By theorem 5.5 $`\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)=U^G(X,G/G)`$ is isomorphic to $`𝕎_G([X])`$. ∎

###### Proof of theorem 3.6.

Let $`R_0=R(G/e)`$. Given $`\alpha =[WCDX]U^{fG}(W,X)`$ we have an $`fG`$-Tambara map $`\alpha ^{}:U^G(X,)U^G(W,)`$ and we have the map $`R(\alpha ):R(W)R(X)`$. Hence we obtain maps

$$U^G(X,G/G)\times R(X)U^G(X,G/G)\times R(W)U^G(W,G/G)\times R(W).$$

Recall from lemma 2.4 that $`L_GR(G/G)`$ can be constructed by the coequalizer of the diagram

$$\underset{X,Y\mathrm{ob}U^{fG}}{}U^G(X,G/G)\times R(Y)\stackrel{}{}\underset{X\mathrm{ob}U^{fG}}{}U^G(X,G/G)\times R(X),$$

induced by the above maps. We shall construct a map

$$\rho :L_GR(G/G)𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0)$$

by specifying explicit maps $`\rho _X:U^G(X,G/G)\times R(X)𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0)`$. Given $`\underset{¯}{r}R(X)`$, we have an $`fG`$-Tambara morphism $`\mathrm{ev}_{\underset{¯}{r}}:U^{fG}(X,)R`$. In particular we have a $`G`$-homomorphism $`\mathrm{ev}_{\underset{¯}{r}}(G/e):U^G(X,G/e)R(G/e)=R_0`$. By theorem 5.5 we get an induced ring-homomorphism

$$U^G(X,G/G)𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))/𝕀_G(U^G(X,G/e))𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0),$$

and hence by adjunction we obtain a map

$$\rho _X:U^G(X,G/G)\times R(X)𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0).$$

We need to check that these $`\rho _X`$ induce a map on the coequalizer $`L_GR(G/G)`$ of the above coequalizer diagram, that is, for $`\alpha `$ as above we need to show that the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccc}U^G(X,G/G)\times R(W)& \stackrel{\alpha ^{}\times \mathrm{id}}{}& U^G(W,G/G)\times R(W)\\ \mathrm{id}\times R\left(\alpha \right)& & \rho _W& & \\ U^G(X,G/G)\times R(X)& \stackrel{\rho _X}{}& 𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0)\end{array}$$

commutes. In order to do this we note that the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccc}𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))& \stackrel{t}{}& U^G(X,G/G)\\ \alpha ^{}& & \alpha ^{}& & \\ 𝕎_G(U^G(W,G/e))& \stackrel{t}{}& U^G(W,G/G)\end{array}$$

commutes, and therefore it will suffice to show that the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccc}𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))\times R(W)& \stackrel{\alpha ^{}\times \mathrm{id}}{}& 𝕎_G(U^G(W,G/e))\times R(W)\\ \mathrm{id}\times R\left(\alpha \right)& & & & \\ 𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))\times R(X)& & 𝕎_G(R_0)\end{array}$$

commutes, where the arrows without labels are constructed using the homomorphisms $`𝕎_G(\mathrm{ev}_{\underset{¯}{r}}(G/e))`$ for $`\underset{¯}{r}`$ an element of either $`R(X)`$ or $`R(W)`$. Using diagonal inclusions of the form

$$𝕎_G(T)\times Z𝕎_G(T)\times \underset{UG}{}^{}Z\underset{UG}{}^{}(T\times Z)$$

we see that it suffices to show note that the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccc}_{UG}^{}(U^G(X,G/e)\times R(W))& \stackrel{_{UG}^{}(\alpha ^{}\times \mathrm{id})}{}& _{UG}^{}(U^G(W,G/e)\times R(W))\\ _{UG}^{}\left(\mathrm{id}\times R\left(\alpha \right)\right)& & & & \\ _{UG}^{}(U^G(X,G/e)\times R(X))& & _{UG}^{}R(G/e)𝕎_G(R_0)\end{array}$$

commutes. This finishes the construction of $`\rho :L_GR(G/G)𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0)`$. We leave it to the reader to check that $`\rho `$ and $`\tau `$ are inverse bijections. For this it might be helpful to note that

$`{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}([G/e\stackrel{=}{}G/e\stackrel{\pi _e^U}{}G/UG/G][YA_UB_UG/e])`$
$`=`$ $`[{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}G/e\stackrel{=}{}{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}G/e{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}G/UG/G][Y{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}A_U{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}B_U{\displaystyle \underset{UG}{}^{}}G/e].`$
In order to begin the proof of theorem 5.5 we need to introduce filtrations of both sides.

###### Definition 5.6.

Let $`R`$ be a ring and let $`UG`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$. We let $`I_U𝕎_G(R)`$ denote the ideal generated by those $`a=(a_K)_{KG}^{}𝕎_G(R)`$ satisfying that $`a_K0`$ implies that $`KU`$. We let $`\stackrel{~}{I}_UI_U`$ denote the subideal $`\stackrel{~}{I}_U=_{VU}I_VI_U`$.

###### Definition 5.7.

Given a $`G`$-sets $`X`$, we let $`J_U^+=J_U(X,G/G)\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)`$ denote the subset of elements of the form $`[XABG/G]U_+^G(X,G/G)U^G(X,G/G)`$, where $`B^K=\mathrm{}`$ when $`UK`$ and $`UK`$. We let $`J_UU^G(X,G/G)`$ denote the ideal generated by $`J_U^+`$ and we let $`\stackrel{~}{J}_UJ_U`$ denote the subideal $`\stackrel{~}{J}_U=_{VU}J_VJ_U`$.

###### Lemma 5.8.

In the situation of the above definition the following holds:

1. Any element in $`J_U`$ is of the form $`xy`$ for $`x,yJ_U^+`$.
2. Every element $`x`$ in the image of the map $`J_U^+J_U/\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$ is of the form

$$x=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}G/e\times A\stackrel{\pi _e^U\times f}{}G/U\times B\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]+\stackrel{~}{J}_U,$$

with $`f:AB`$ a map of (nonequivariant) sets and $`d`$ a $`G`$-map, where $`q`$ is the composition $`G/U\times B\stackrel{pr}{}G/U\stackrel{\pi _U^G}{}G/G`$.
3. If

$$x=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}G/e\times A\stackrel{\pi _e^U\times f}{}G/U\times B\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]+\stackrel{~}{J}_U,$$

and

$$x^{}=[X\stackrel{d^{}}{}G/e\times A^{}\stackrel{\pi _e^U\times f^{}}{}G/U\times B^{}\stackrel{q^{}}{}G/G]+\stackrel{~}{J}_U,$$

then $`x=x^{}`$ if and only if there exist bijections $`\alpha :AA^{}`$ and $`\beta :BB^{}`$ and for every $`aA`$ there exists $`g_aN_G(U)`$ such that firstly $`d^{}(e,\alpha a)=d(g_a,a)`$, and secondly, if $`a_1,a_2A`$ satisfy that $`f(a_1)=f(a_2)`$, then $`g_{a_1}U=g_{a_2}U`$.

###### Proof.

A straight forward verification yields that multiplication in $`\stackrel{~}{U}_+^G(X,G/G)`$ induces a map $`J_U^+\times \stackrel{~}{U}_+^G(X,G/G)J_U^+`$ and that $`J_U^+`$ is closed under sum. It follows that $`J_U`$ is the abelian subgroup of $`U^G(X,G/G)`$ generated by $`J_U^+`$. The statement (i) is a direct consequence of this. For (ii) we note that for every element

$$r=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}D\stackrel{𝑐}{}E\stackrel{𝑡}{}G/G]$$

in $`\stackrel{~}{U}_+^G(X,G/G)`$, we have a decomposition $`E_{KG}^{}E_K`$, where $`E_KG/K\times B_K`$ for some $`B_K`$. This decomposition induces an isomorphism

$$\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)\underset{KG}{}^{}J_K/\stackrel{~}{J}_K$$

of abelian groups. Given an element $`x`$ of the form

$$x=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}D\stackrel{𝑐}{}G/U\times B\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]+\stackrel{~}{J}_U,$$

we can choose a $`G`$-bijection of the form $`c^1(G/U\times \{b\})G/e\times A_b`$ for every $`bB`$. It follows that $`x`$ is represented by an element of the form

$$x=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}G/e\times A\stackrel{p\times f}{}G/U\times B\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]+\stackrel{~}{J}_U.$$

We leave the straight forward verification of part (iii) to the reader. ∎

###### Lemma 5.9.

Let $`U`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$ and let $`a=(a_U)_{UG}^{}I_U`$ have

$$a_U=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\times G/e\stackrel{f\times 1}{}B\times G/e\stackrel{pr}{}G/e].$$

Then

$$\tau (a)[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\times G/e\stackrel{f\times \pi _e^U}{}B\times G/UG/G]\text{mod }\stackrel{~}{J}_U.$$

###### Proof.

The lemma follows from the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}X& \stackrel{d}{}& A\times G/e& & W& & G/e\times A\\ & & f\times \mathrm{id}& & & & & & \\ G/e& \stackrel{\mathrm{pr}}{}& G/e\times B& & Z& & G/e\times B\\ \pi _e^U& & & & & & & & \\ G/U& & _{gUG/U}\mathrm{map}(gU,B)& =& Y& & G/U\times B,\end{array}$$

where the lower rectangle is an exponential diagram and the squares are pull-backs. We use that the map $`G/U\times BY`$ which takes $`(gU,b)`$ to the constant map $`gUB`$ with value $`b`$ is an isomorphism on $`G/U`$-parts and that $`Y^H=\mathrm{}`$ for $`UH`$ and $`UH`$. ∎

###### Corollary 5.10.

Let $`X`$ be a $`G`$-set and let $`R=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,)`$. The map

$$\tau :𝕎_G(U^G(X,G/e))L_GR(G/G)=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)$$

satisfies that $`\tau (I_U)J_U`$ and that $`\tau (\stackrel{~}{I}_U)\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$.

###### Proposition 5.11.

Let $`X`$ be a $`G`$-set, let $`R=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,)`$ and let $`R_0=R(G/e)`$. For every $`UG`$ the map $`\tau :𝕎_G(R_0)/𝕀_G(R_0)L_GR(G/G)=\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/G)`$ induces an isomorphism $`\tau _U:(𝕀_G(R_0)+I_U)/(𝕀_G(R_0)+\stackrel{~}{I}_U)J_U/\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`xI_U`$ have $`x_U=[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\times G/e\stackrel{f\times 1}{}B\times G/e\stackrel{pr}{}G/e]`$. Then by lemma 5.9 $`\tau (x)[X\stackrel{𝑑}{}A\times G/e\stackrel{f\times p}{}B\times G/U\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]`$ mod $`\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$, with the notation introduced there, and it follows from lemma 5.8 that $`\tau _U`$ is onto. On the other hand, to prove injectivity, we pick $`x_1,x_2I_U`$ with $`\tau (x_1)\tau (x_2)mod\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$. Suppose that $`x_{i,U}`$ has the form

$$x_{i,U}=[Z\stackrel{d_i}{}A_i\times G/e\stackrel{f_i\times 1}{}B_i\times G/e\stackrel{=}{}G/e]$$

for $`i=1,2`$. Let

$$y_i=[Z\stackrel{d_i}{}A_i\times G/e\stackrel{f_i\times \pi _e^U}{}B\times G/U\stackrel{𝑞}{}G/G]$$

for $`i=1,2`$. Then by lemma 5.9 $`y_i\tau (x_i)mod\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$ for $`i=1,2`$. It follows from lemma 5.8 that there exist bijections $`\alpha :A_1A_2`$ and $`\beta :B_1B_2`$ and for every $`aA_1`$ there exists $`g_aN_G(U)`$ such that firstly $`d_1(\alpha a)=g_ad(a)`$ and secondly, if $`a_1,a_2A`$ satisfy that $`f(a_1)=f(a_2)`$, then $`g_{a_1}U=g_{a_2}U`$. Given $`aA_i`$, let $`z_{i,a}\stackrel{~}{U}^G(X,G/e)`$ denote the element $`[X\stackrel{d_{i,a}}{}G/e\stackrel{𝑝}{}G/e\stackrel{=}{}G/e]`$, where $`d_{i,a}(e)=d_i(a,e)`$. Then $`z_{2,\alpha (a)}=g_az_{1,a}`$ and $`x_{i,U}=_{bB_i}(_{af_i^1(b)}z_{i,a})`$ for $`i=1,2`$, where an empty product is $`1`$ and an empty sum is $`0`$. We can conclude that $`x_{1,U}x_{2,U}𝕀_G(R)`$, and hence $`x_1x_2𝕀_G(R)+\stackrel{~}{I}_U`$. In the general case $`\tau (x_1x_1^{})\tau (x_2x_2^{})mod\stackrel{~}{J}_U`$ we easily obtain that $`x_1x_1^{}x_2x_2^{}mod𝕀_G(R)+\stackrel{~}{I}_U`$ by collecting the positive terms. ∎

###### Proof of theorem 5.5.

We first note that $`\stackrel{~}{I}_V=_{UV}I_U\underset{UV}{\text{colim}}I_UI_V`$ and that $`\stackrel{~}{J}_V=_{UV}J_U\underset{UV}{\text{colim}}J_UJ_V`$. The result now follows by induction on the cardinality of $`V`$ using the above proposition and the five lemma on the following map of short exact sequences:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\stackrel{~}{𝕀}_G(R(G/e))+I_V& & 𝕀_G(R(G/e))+I_V& & \frac{(𝕀_G(R(G/e))+I_V)}{(𝕀_G(R(G/e))+\stackrel{~}{I}_V)}\\ & & & & & & \\ \stackrel{~}{J}_V& & J_V& & J_V/\stackrel{~}{J}_V.\end{array}$$

## 6. The Witt Tambara-functor

In this section we finally prove theorem C. Given a subgroup $`HG`$ and an $`H`$-set $`X`$, we can construct a $`G\times H`$-set $`G/e\times X`$, where $`G`$ acts by multiplication on the left on $`G/e`$, and where $`h(g,x):=(gh^1,hx)`$. We let $`\mathrm{ind}_H^GX`$ denote the $`G`$-set $`H\backslash (G/e\times X)`$.

###### Lemma 6.1.

Let $`H`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$. The functor $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G:\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^H\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ induces functors $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G:U^HU^G`$, and $`\mathrm{ind}_{fH}^{fG}:U^{fH}U^{fG}`$.

###### Proof.

Since the functor $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G:\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^H\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G`$ preserves pull-back diagrams and exponential diagrams it induces a functor $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G:U^HU^G`$ that takes $`XABY`$ to $`\mathrm{ind}_H^GX\mathrm{ind}_H^GA\mathrm{ind}_H^GB\mathrm{ind}_H^GY`$. ∎

Given a $`G`$-Tambara functor $`S`$ we can construct an $`H`$-Tambara functor $`\mathrm{res}_H^GS=S\mathrm{ind}_H^G`$. Similarly, given an $`fG`$-Tambara functor $`R`$ we can construct an $`fH`$-Tambara functor $`\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}S=S\mathrm{ind}_{fH}^{fG}`$.

###### Theorem 6.2.

Given an $`fG`$-Tambara functor $`R`$, the Teichmüller homomorphism

$$\tau :𝕎_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}R(H/e))/𝕀_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}R(H/e))\mathrm{res}_H^GL_G(H/H)$$

is an isomorphism.

###### Proof of theorem C.

If we consider $`R_0=R(G/e)`$ as an $`H`$-ring, then

$$𝕎_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}(H/e))/𝕀_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}(H/e))𝕎_H(R_0)/𝕀_H(R_0),$$

and $`\mathrm{res}_H^GL_G(H/H)=L_GR(G/H)`$. Combining these observations with 6.2 we obtain the statement of theorem C. ∎

###### Lemma 6.3.

Let $`H`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$. The forgetful functor $`i^{}:\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^G\mathrm{𝑖𝑛}^H`$ which takes a $`G`$-set $`Y`$ to the same set considered as an $`H`$-set induces functors $`i^{}:U^GU^H`$ and $`i_f^{}:U^{fG}U^{fH}`$.

###### Lemma 6.4.

Let $`H`$ be a subgroup of $`G`$. The functor $`i^{}:U^GU^H`$ is left adjoint to the functor $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G:U^HU^G`$ and the functor $`i_f^{}:U^{fG}U^{fH}`$ is left adjoint to the functor $`\mathrm{ind}_{fH}^{fG}:U^{fH}U^{fG}`$.

###### Proof.

We prove only the first part of the lemma. Given $`XABG\times _HY`$ in $`U^G(X,G\times _HY)`$ we construct an element in $`U^H(i^{}X,Y)`$ by the following diagram where the two squares furthest to the right are pull-back squares:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}i^{}X& & A_H& & B_H& & H\times _HY\\ & & & & & & & & \\ X& & A& & B& & G\times _HY.\end{array}$$

Conversely, given $`i^{}XEFY`$ in $`U^H(i^{}X,Y)`$ we construct the element $`XG\times _HEG\times _HFG\times _HY`$ in $`U^G(X,G\times _HY)`$. Here the arrow pointing to the left is the composite $`G\times _HEG\times _Hi^{}XX`$. We leave it to the reader to check that the maps are inverse bijections in an adjunction. ∎

We have the following commutative diagram of categories:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}U^{fG}& \stackrel{i_f^{}}{}& U^{fH}\\ & & & & \\ U^G& \stackrel{i^{}}{}& U^H,\end{array}$$

where the vertical functors are the natural inclusions. Since $`\mathrm{ind}_H^G`$ is right adjoint to $`i^{}`$, $`\mathrm{res}_H^G`$ is left adjoint to $`[i^{},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$ (see for example \[Sch, Proposition 16.6.3\].) Similarly $`\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}`$ is left adjoint to $`[i_f^{},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0`$. From the commutative diagram of functor categories

$$\begin{array}{ccc}[U^{fG},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0& \stackrel{[i_f^{},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0}{}& [U^{fH},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0\\ & & & & \\ [U^G,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0& \stackrel{[i^{},\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0}{}& [U^H,\mathrm{𝑛𝑠}]_0,\end{array}$$

where the vertical maps are the forgetful functors induced by the inclusions $`U^{fG}U^G`$ and $`U^{fH}U^H`$ we can conclude that there is a natural isomorphism $`\mathrm{res}_H^GL_GL_H\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}`$.

###### Proof of theorem 6.2.

By theorem 3.6 we have an isomorphism

$$𝕎_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}R(H/e))/𝕀_H(\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}R(H/e))\stackrel{𝜏}{}L_H\mathrm{res}_{fH}^{fG}R(H/H)\mathrm{res}_H^GL_GR(H/H).$$


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# Forward Symplectic Integrators for Solving Gravitational Few-Body Problems

## 1 Introduction

Symplectic Integrators (SI) (Yoshida, 1993; Channell and Neri, 1996) conserve all Poincaré invariants when integrating classical trajectories. For periodic orbits, their energy errors are bounded and periodic, in contrast to Runge-Katta type algorithms whose energy error increases linearly with integration time (Gladman, Duncan and Candy, 1991). Symplectic algorithms are therefore better long time integrators of astrophysical many-body problems (Wisdom and Holman, 1991; Saha and Tremaine, 1992) and have been studied extensively in the literature (Candy and Rozmus, 1991; Yoshida, 1993; McLachlan, 1995; Koseleff, 1996; Blanes et al., 1999). However, current higher order SI seem to suffer two disadvantages. First, the number of force evaluations require by these algorithms proliferates much more rapidly than non-symplectic algorithms. For example, a six order Runge-Kutta-Nyström algorithm (Albrecht, 1955) requires only five force evaluations; a six order symplectic algorithm with negative intermediate time steps requires at least seven force evaluations (Yoshida, 1990). Second, they seem to have a shorter stability range. This may also due to the use of negative time steps for cancelling lower order errors. In this work, we consider a class of fourth order Forward Symplectic Integrators (FSI), which have only positive time steps (Chin, 1997; Chin and Chen, 2002). (We have referred to these as gradient symplectic algorithms previously.) The price for having only positive time steps is that one must compute the force gradient in additional to the force. This additional effort for gravitational few-body problems is very modest, but the resulting gain in numerical efficiency and stability is tremendous. We will show below that these FSI can achieve accuracy of existing symplectic integrators at step sizes five to ten times as large. These very powerful algorithms should be considered by colleauges doing long time few-body simulations.

Despite the fact that Wisdom and Holman (1991) have questioned in 1991 why there were no FSI beyond second order, this class of algorithms has been unrecognized and overlooked until recently. The reason for this is simple; classical dynamics is time reversible, there is no compelling demand for purely positive time steps. The demand for positive time steps only arises when one has to solve time-irreversible equations, such the diffusion (Auer et al., 2001), Fokker-Planck (Forbert and Chin, 2001), and Navier-Stoke equations. However, once FSI have been derived, they can be used to solve both time-reversible and time-irreversible evolution equations. For time-irreversible systems, they are the only decomposition algorithm possible, but even for time-reversible equations, they give rise to algorithms of great efficiency and stability.

In the next Section, we will describe in detail how this class of algorithms fits into the large picture of symplectic integrator development. We will show that our FSI traces it lineage to Ruth’s seldom used third order algorithm (Ruth, 1983). In Section 3, we describe our fourth order FSI and the one-parameter family of integrators. In Section 4, we compare various algorithms by computing a lengthy and intricate closed orbit of a circularly restricted three-body problem. Physical three-body problems, such as the Sun-Earth-Moon, or Sun-Jupiter-Saturn, are too “tame” for discriminating the merit of these very powerful algorithms. Here, we also note a puzzling fact that some algorithms can appear to converge at higher order than expected. We summarize our conclusions and suggest some future direction of research in Section 5.

## 2 Relation to Existing Symplectic Integrators

To give context to our work, we will review the development of symplectic integrators in the general contex of solving any evolution equation of the form

$$\frac{w}{t}=(T+V)w,$$
(1)
where $`T`$ and $`V`$ are non-commuting operators. Classically, the evolution of a dynamical variable $`w(q_i,p_i)`$ is given by the Poisson bracket (sum over repeated indices),

$$\frac{d}{dt}w(q_i,p_i)=\{w,H\}\left(\frac{w}{q_i}\frac{H}{p_i}\frac{w}{p_i}\frac{H}{q_i}\right).$$
(2)
For a Hamiltonian of the form,

$$H(p,q)=\frac{1}{2}p_ip_i+v(q_i),$$
(3)
equation (2) is of the form (1) with $`T`$ and $`V`$ given by

$$T=p_i\frac{}{q_i},V=F_i\frac{}{p_i},$$
(4)
where $`F_i=v/q_i`$. For this case, the constituent evolution operators $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵT}`$ and $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵV}`$ displace $`q_i`$ and $`p_i`$ forward in time via

$$q_iq_i+ϵp_i\mathrm{and}p_ip_i+ϵF_i.$$
(5)
In general, the evolution equation (1) can be solved iteratively via

$$w(t+ϵ)=\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}w(t),$$
(6)
provided that one has a suitable approximation for the short time evolution operator $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}`$. If $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵT}`$ and $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵV}`$ can be exactly implemented individually, then $`\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}`$ can be decomposed to arbitrarily high order in the form

$$\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}=\underset{i}{}\mathrm{e}^{a_iϵT}\mathrm{e}^{b_iϵV}.$$
(7)
For example, from the second order factorization

$$\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{ϵV}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}=𝒯^{(2)},$$
(8)
one can construct a fourth order approximation via

$$𝒯_{FR}^{(4)}(ϵ)=𝒯^{(2)}(\stackrel{~}{ϵ})𝒯^{(2)}(s\stackrel{~}{ϵ})𝒯^{(2)}(\stackrel{~}{ϵ}),$$
(9)
where $`s=2^{1/3}`$ is chosen to cancel the third order error in $`𝒯^{(2)}`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}=ϵ/(2s)`$ rescales the sum of forward-backward-forward time steps back to $`ϵ`$. This fourth order Forest-Ruth (FR) scheme (Forest and Ruth, 1990) has been independently derived many times (Campostrini and Rossi, 1990; Candy and Rozmus, 1991). The above construction, while widely known through the work of Yoshida (1990), was first published by Creutz and Gocksch (1989).

The middle time step in (9) is negative. This is not accidental. Sheng (1989) and Suzuki (1991) have independently proved that, beyond second order, any factorization of the form (7) must contain some negative coefficients in the set $`\{a_i,b_i\}`$. Goldman and Kaper (1996) later proved that any factorization of the form (7) must contain at least one negative coefficients for both operators. This means that for any evolution equations containing an irreversible operator, such as the diffusion kernel $`T=\frac{1}{2}^2`$, no algorithms of the form (7) is possible beyond second order. This is because $`𝐫^{}|\mathrm{e}^{a_iϵT}|𝐫\mathrm{e}^{(𝐫^{}𝐫)^2/(2a_iϵ)}`$ is the diffusion kernel only if $`a_i`$ is positive. If $`a_i`$ were negative, then the kernel would be unbound and unnormalizable, reflecting the fact that diffusion is a time-irreversible process. Positive coefficients are therefore absolutely essential for solving any evolution equation having an irreversible component. We have shown, and will further domonstrate below, that even for time-reversible systems such as quantum (Chin and Chen, 2002) or classical dynamics (Chin, 1997), purely positive coefficients give rises to very efficient algorithms with excellent convergence properties.

While Sheng’s proof is slightly more general, Suzuki’s proof provides insight into how to circumvent this negative coefficient problem. The essence of Suzuki’s proof is to note that, for example, one has the following operator respresentation of the velocity form of the Verlet algorithm,

$$\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV}\mathrm{e}^{ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV}=\mathrm{e}^{ϵH^{}},$$
(10)
with

$$H^{}=T+V\frac{1}{12}ϵ^2[T,[V,T]]+\frac{1}{24}ϵ^2[V,[T,V]]+O(ϵ^4).$$
(11)
In order to obtain a fourth order algorithm, one must eliminate the two double commutator error terms above. With purely positive coefficients $`a_i`$ and $`b_i`$, one can eliminate either one, but not both. Thus to obtain a fourth order factorization with only positive coefficients, one must keep one of the two double commutators. With $`T`$ and $`V`$ as defined by (4), the commutator

$$[V,[T,V]]=2F_j\frac{F_i}{q_j}\frac{}{p_i}=_i(|𝐅|^2)\frac{}{p_i},$$
(12)
simply give rises to a new force defined by the gradient of the square of the force modulus. This commutator can therefore be kept. The use of this force gradient is not new. Ruth (1983) in his pioneering paper paper has derived a third order derivative algorithm on the basis of canonical transformations. However, this algorithm was universally ignored (Channell and Neri, 1996) with no follow-up discussion. In 1997 one of us (Chin, 1997) noted that Ruth’s algorithm actually corresponds to a time-asymmetric operator decomposition and that his force derivative is precisely the force gradient given by $`[V,[T,V]]`$. The importance of Suzuki’s proof is that it draws a clear connection between the demands for positive time steps and the necessity of keeping higher order commutators, such as $`[V,[T,V]]`$.

If one were to keep $`[V,[T,V]]`$, then there are two distinct ways of eliminating the other double commutator $`[T,[V,T]]`$. Despite the lack of an operator formalism, Rowland (1991) also noted that the velocity form of the Verlet algorithm has error terms of the form (11). He proposed to get rid of the $`[T,[V,T]`$ term by an explicit transformation and to view the algorithm as fourth order for a Hamiltonian with a modified potential

$$V^{}=V+\frac{1}{24}ϵ^2[V,[T,V]].$$
(13)
The reinterpretation of the potential is easy, the tricky part here is that since one has performed a transformation to eliminate $`[T,[V,T]]`$, one must transform back correctly to preserve fourth order accurracy for the original variables. This transformation is often more complicated than the original algorithm. This way of eliminating $`[T,[V,T]]`$ is tantamount to applying operators

$$\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV}\mathrm{e}^{ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV}\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}$$
(14)
where $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ and $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ are the initial and final transformations respectively. They can be further decomposed into the product form, $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}=_i\mathrm{e}^{c_iϵT}\mathrm{e}^{d_iϵV}`$. This class of “process” (Lopez-Marcos et al., 1996, 1997; Blanes et al., 1999) or “corrector” (Wisdom, Holman and Touma, 1996; McLachlan, 1996) symplectic algrithms has the distinct advantage that when one iterates the algorithm, only the kernel algorithm needs to be iterated. If there is no need to keep track of intermediate results, then a fourth order algorithm is possible with only a single evaluation of the modified force (Lopez-Marcos et al., 1996, 1997; Wisdom, Holman and Touma, 1996; Blanes et al., 1999). However, by its very construction, either $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ or $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ must contain negative time steps, and cannot be applied to equations with an irreversible operator. Nevertheless they are valuable addition to the symplectic repertoire for solving reversible dynamical problems. More recent process algorithms also uses a modified potential, but only in the form (13) and only in the context of a second order kernel algorithm (Blanes et al., 1999). Lopez-Marcos et al. (1997) have used a two-fold Rowland kernel that could have been fourth order, but the correct parameter values for that were never considered.

In the operator formalism, a more direct way of eliminating $`[T,[V,T]]`$ is to add more operators symmetrically. In this approach, the elimination of $`[T,[V,T]]`$ is built-in, with no need of an extrinsic transformation. McLachlan (1995) has done this for algorithms 4A and 4B (described below) in the context of a slightly perturbed Hamiltonian system. But his algorithms were not truly fourth order because he did not bother to keep the commutator $`[V,[T,V]]`$. These pseudo-higher order algorithms (McLachlan, 1995; Chambers and Murison, 2000; Laskar and Robutel, 2000), which only require a single error commutator to vanish at each order, are much simpler than regular higher order algorithms, which require all error commutators to vanish at each order. There is also a widely cited reference by Koseleff (1993) that purported to contain a fourth order scheme using modified potentials. Koseleff’s algorithm would have been algorithm 4A discussed below, unfortunately, his coefficient for the commutator $`[V,[T,V]]`$ is incorrect. It should be 1/72 rather than 1/24.

## 3 Fourth Order Forward Symplectic Integrators

Suzuki, on the basis of McLachan’s work (McLachlan, 1995), retained the commutator $`[T,[V,T]]`$ and wrote down two fourth order factorization schemes 4A and 4B with purely positively coefficients (Suzuki, 1996). He did not implement them classically or quantum mechanically, nor in anyway demonstrated their usefulness. One of us (Chin, 1997) derived schemes 4A and 4B by elementary means independent of McLachan’s work, and have explicitly implemented them classically and demonstrated their effectiveness in solving the Kepler problem. Moreover, algorithms 4C (Chin, 1997), which is the direct descendant of Ruth’s third order algorithm Ruth (1983), in all cases tested, has have much smaller error coefficients than 4A and 4B. Prior to Chin’s work, we are not aware of any implementation of fourth order FSI for solving any problem.

Since the commutator and the gradient force term occur frequently in the following, we will define

$$U(t)[V(t),[T,V(t)]]\mathrm{and}G_i(t)_i(|𝐅(t)|^2)$$

to simplify notations. The time-dependent form of the four FSI derived in Chin and Chen (2002) are:

$$𝒯_A^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{6}ϵV(t+ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{2}{3}ϵ\stackrel{~}{V}(t+ϵ/2)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{6}ϵV(t)},$$
(15)
with $`\stackrel{~}{V}`$ defined by

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(t)=V(t)+\frac{1}{48}ϵ^2U(t),$$
(16)
corresponding to a modified force

$$\stackrel{~}{𝐅}(t)=𝐅(t)+\frac{1}{48}ϵ^2𝐆(t).$$
(17)
Given $`𝐩_0=𝐩(t)`$ and $`𝐪_\mathrm{𝟎}=𝐪(t)`$, transcribing each operator in (15) according to (5) yields the following explicit algorithm 4A for advancing the system forward to from $`t`$ to $`t+ϵ`$,

$`𝐩_1`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}ϵ𝐅(𝐪_0,t)`$
$`𝐪_1`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ𝐩_1`$
$`𝐩_2`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}ϵ\stackrel{~}{𝐅}(𝐪_1,t+ϵ/2)`$ (18)
$`𝐪_2`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ𝐩_2`$
$`𝐩_3`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}ϵ𝐅(𝐪_2,t+ϵ).`$
The last $`𝐩`$ and $`𝐪`$ are the updated variables, i.e., $`𝐪(t+ϵ)=𝐪_2`$ and $`𝐩(t+ϵ)=𝐩_3`$. For long time integration, when intermediate time results are not needed, the first and last force evaluation are the same and only need to be evaluated once. Thus algorithm 4A only requires two evalutations of the force and one evaluation of the force gradient to be fourth order. Note that forces are to be evaluated at an intermediate time equals to the sum of time steps of all the preceding $`T`$ operators (Suzuki, 1993; Chin and Chen, 2002).

Similarly algorithm 4B in operator form is

$$𝒯_B^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵ\overline{V}(t+a_2ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_1ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵ\overline{V}(t+a_1ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_0ϵT},$$
(19)
where

$$t_0=t_2=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}),t_1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}},a_1=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}),a_2=\frac{1}{2}(1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}),$$
(20)
and with $`\overline{V}`$ given by

$$\overline{V}(t)=V(t)+c_0ϵ^2U(t).$$
(21)
This is just a modified force with a different coefficient $`c_0=\frac{1}{24}(2\sqrt{3})`$. The transcription to an explicit algorithm is similar to the 4A case and will not be repeated. Algorithm 4B requires two evaluations of the force and two evalutation of the force gradient. After we have discovered the one-parameter family of algorithms discussed below, we realize that one can improve 4B by eliminating one evaluation of the gradient force. This is done by concentrating the commutator term at the center of algorithm:

$$𝒯_B^{}^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV(t+a_2ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}t_1ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{c_0ϵ^3U(t+ϵ/2)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}t_1ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵV(t+a_1ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_0ϵT}.$$
(22)
Just to be sure that there is no confusions, we transcribe this algorithm 4B as follows

$`𝐪_1`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_0+t_0ϵ𝐩_0`$
$`𝐩_1`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ𝐅(𝐪_1,t+a_1ϵ)`$
$`𝐪_2`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}t_1ϵ𝐩_1`$
$`𝐩_2`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_1+c_0ϵ^3𝐆(𝐪_2,t+ϵ/2)`$ (23)
$`𝐪_3`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}t_1ϵ𝐩_2`$
$`𝐩_3`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ𝐅(𝐪_3,t+a_2ϵ).`$
$`𝐪_4`$ $`=`$ $`𝐪_3+t_2ϵ𝐩_3.`$
Again, the last two variables are the updated variables, $`𝐪(t+ϵ)=𝐪_4`$ and $`𝐩(t+ϵ)=𝐩_3`$. In contrast to algorithm 4A, 4B only requires two force and one gradient evaluations for every update and can be used to produce continuous outputs.

One of us has shown (Chin, 1997) that Ruth’s orginal third order algorithm (Ruth, 1983) simply corresponds to the following asymmetric third order decomposition:

$$\mathrm{e}^{ϵ(T+V)}=\mathrm{e}^{ϵ\frac{1}{3}T}\mathrm{e}^{ϵ\frac{3}{4}V}\mathrm{e}^{ϵ\frac{2}{3}T}\mathrm{e}^{ϵ\frac{1}{4}V^{}},$$
(24)
with $`V^{}=V+\frac{1}{12}ϵ^2[V,[T,V]]`$. The power of the operator approach is that one immediately realizes that the third order error in (24) can be eliminated by symmetrization, since a symmetric decomposition can only have errors of even order in $`ϵ`$. To symmetrize, take two third order algorithms (24) at half the time step, flip one over and concatenate. Algorithms 4C and 4D correspond to the two possible ways of concatenation:

$$𝒯_C^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{6}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{3}{8}ϵV(t+5ϵ/6)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{4}ϵ\stackrel{~}{V}(t+ϵ/2)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{3}{8}ϵV(t+ϵ/6)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{6}ϵT},$$
(25)
$$𝒯_D^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{8}ϵ\stackrel{~}{V}(t+ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{3}{8}ϵV(t+2ϵ/3)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{3}{8}ϵV(t+ϵ/3)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{8}ϵ\stackrel{~}{V}(t)},$$
(26)
where $`\stackrel{~}{V}(t)`$ is the same modified force (16) used in algorithm 4A.

Algorithms 4A, 4C and 4B are special cases of a one-parameter family of algorithms

$$𝒯_{ACB^{}}^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{t_3ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_3ϵV(t+a_3ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{ϵW(t+a_2ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_1ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_1ϵV(t+a_1ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_0ϵT}$$
(27)
parametrized by $`t_0`$. Given $`t_0`$, the rest of the coefficients are:

$$t_1=t_2=\frac{1}{2}t_0,t_3=t_0,v_1=v_3=\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(12t_0)^2},v_2=1(v_1+v_3),$$
(28)
$`a_1=t_0`$, $`a_2=1/2`$, $`a_3=1t_0`$, with $`W(t)`$ defined by

$$W(t)=v_2V(t)+u_0ϵ^2U(t),$$
(29)
and

$$u_0=\frac{1}{12}\left[1\frac{1}{12t_0}+\frac{1}{6(12t_0)^3}\right].$$
(30)
All coefficients are positive for $`t_0`$ in the range $`[0,\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}})0.21]`$. At $`t_0=0`$, one has algorithm 4A. At $`t_0=1/60.167`$, one has algorithm 4C. At the upper limit of $`t_0=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}})`$, $`v_2=0`$, and one recovers algoirthm 4B. One can therefore changes continuously from algorithm 4A to 4C to 4B by varying the parameter $`t_0`$. This is very useful in cases where any two of the above algorithms have convergence errors of opposite signs. By varying $`t_0`$, one can set that error to zero with no additional computational effort. For solving the gravitational three-body problem in the next section, we use $`t_0=0.138`$, which is intermediate between that of 4A and 4C.

There is also a one parameter family of algorithms connecting algorithms 4B, a variant of 4D and 4A (Chin and Chen, 2002). This family generally requires four force evaluations plus the force gradient. We will not consider it further in this work.

## 4 The Circularly Restricted Three-Body Problem

We compare the efficiency of these FSI by solving the planar circularly restricted 3-body problem defined by

$$\frac{d^2𝐫}{dt^2}=𝐚(𝐫,t)\frac{1}{2}\left[𝐚_1(𝐫,t)+𝐚_2(𝐫,t)\right]$$
(31)
where for $`i=1,2`$,

$$𝐚_i(𝐫,t)=\frac{𝐫𝐫_i(t)}{S_i^3}\mathrm{and}S_i=|𝐫𝐫_i(t)|.$$

The two attractive centers $`𝐫_1(t)`$ and $`𝐫_2(t)`$ orbit about the origin in circles with angular velocity $`\omega =1`$:

$$𝐫_1(t)=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{cos}(t),\mathrm{sin}(t)),$$

$$𝐫_2(t)=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{cos}(t),\mathrm{sin}(t)).$$

The gradient term is no more complicated than the force itself,

$$(|𝐚|^2)=\frac{1}{2}\left[C_1𝐚_1+C_2𝐚_2\right]$$
(32)
with

$$C_1=2S_1^3+3S_1𝐚_1𝐚_2S_2^3$$

$$C_2=2S_2^3+3S_2𝐚_1𝐚_2S_1^3$$

We solve the problem directly in the space-fixed frame in which the force, or the acceleration field as defined above, is explicitly time-dependent. The initial condition $`𝐫_0=(0,0.0580752367)`$ and $`𝐯_0=(0.489765446,0)`$ produce an intricate and lengthy “Chinese Coin” orbit, useful for testing algorithms. The actual period is $`18\pi `$, but in the present case where the two attracting centers are indistinguishable, the orbit repeats after $`9\pi `$. For this work we will consider the orbital period to be $`P=9\pi `$.

In Fig. 1 we compare the trajectory after three periods ($`t=27\pi `$) using the Forest-Ruth algorithm and the our 4B algorithm. In Figure 2 we compare the same trajectory using algorithm M and algorithm 4C. M is McLachan’s fourth order, four force-evaluation algorithm (McLachlan, 1995):

$$𝒯_M^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{t_5ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_1ϵV(t+a_4ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_4ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_2ϵV(t+a_3ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_3ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_2ϵV(t+a_2ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_1ϵV(t+a_1ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_1ϵT},$$
(33)
where $`v_1=6/11`$, $`v_2=1/2v_1`$, $`a_i=_{j=1}^it_j`$ and

$$t_1=t_5=\frac{642+\sqrt{471}}{3924},t_2=t_4=\frac{121}{3924}(12\sqrt{471}),t_3=12(t_1+t_2).$$

Algorithms RF and M are representative fourth order symplectic algorithms with negative intermediate time steps. Both are outperformed by 4B, which only requires two force and one gradient evaluations. We have also tested the standard four force-evaluation Runge-Kutta and the three force-evaluation Runge-Kutta-Nyström algorithm (Battin, 1999). At the same step size, both Rung-Kutta type algorithms are unstable and cannot produce a bounded trajectory. Algorithm 4A and 4B are comparable to 4B, with 4D besting even 4C because it uses one more force evaluation.

The accuracy of each algorithm can be quantitatively assessed by monitoring the Jacobi constant. The Jacobi constant is usually given in the co-rotationg frame in which the two attractive centers are at rest. However, it is just as easy to transform the Jacobi constant back to the space-fixed frame where it has a simple interpretation. For our circularly restricted three-body problem defined by (31), the Jocabi constant $`J`$ is given by

$$J=𝐯^2\frac{1}{|𝐫𝐫_1(t)|}\frac{1}{|𝐫𝐫_2(t)|}2𝐫\times 𝐯,$$
(34)
which is twice the difference between the energy and the angular momentum. For fourth order algorithms, we expect $`J(t)=J_0+ϵ^4J_4(t)`$ and the step-size independent error coefficient $`J_4(t)`$ can be extracted from

$$J_4(t)=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\frac{(JJ_0)}{ϵ^4}.$$

As one decreases the step size, $`J_4(t)`$ converges to a fixed shape characteristic of the algorithm. In Fig. 3 we show this coefficient function for the regular fourth order Runge-Kutta algorithm at a step size of $`ϵ=P/500000.00056`$. In the course of one period, the third body has five close encounters with the two attractive centers, resulting in five error spikes at t/P=1/10, 3/10, 5/10, 7/10, and 9/10. Between each close encounter there are also four minor encounters, resulting in barely discernable error blips. Fig. 3 demonstrates the distinction between symplectic and non-symplectic algorithm. For symplectic algorithms, the error recovers back to zero after each close encounter and remain bounded after each period. For Runge-Kutta type algorithms, each encounter produces an irrecoverable error. The accumulating error then grows linearly in time without limit.

Fig. 3 shows the qualitative difference between symplectic and non-symplectic algorithms. In Fig. 4, we show the quantitative difference between forward and non-forward integrators by examining the detail shape of the error spike at t/P=1/10. In Fig. 4a, the left figure, we compare the error function $`J_4(t)`$ generated by algorithms FR, M and Cor with that of 4A. Cor is a processor or corrector algorithm of the form:

$$𝒯_{Cor}^{(4)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}𝒯_{2M}^{(2)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)},$$
(35)
where the kernel is a second order algorithm (2M)

$$𝒯_{2M}^{(2)}(ϵ)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{ϵV^{}(t+ϵ/2)}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}$$
(36)
with same modified force $`V^{}`$ as defined by (13). This second order kernel has been used in most processor or corrector algorithms (Lopez-Marcos et al., 1996, 1997; Wisdom, Holman and Touma, 1996; Blanes et al., 1999). However, a fourth order corrector with analytical coefficients seems to have been overlooked in all of the above references. This corrector is (Chin, 2002)

$`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{e}^{v_2ϵV(t+[t_1+t_2]ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_1ϵV(t+t_1ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_1ϵT},`$ (37)
$`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{e}^{t_1ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_1ϵV(tt_2ϵ)}\mathrm{e}^{t_2ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{v_2ϵV(t)},`$ (38)
with

$$t_1=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}},t_2=\frac{1}{2^{1/3}\sqrt{3}},v_1=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}\frac{1}{2^{4/3}\sqrt{3}},v_2=\frac{1}{2^{4/3}\sqrt{3}}.$$

Note that at the end of $`\mathrm{e}^{C(ϵ)}`$, time is to be set to $`t(t_1+t_2)ϵ`$. This corrector is unexpectedly short because two error terms having identical coefficients can be eliminated by a single corrector operator. This is the fastest fourth order algorithm when no intermediate results are needed, requiring only one evaluation of the force and its gradient. When continuous output is needed, as it is here, it is the slowest algorithm with five force and one gradient evaluations. Its error function is a factor of two smaller than RF’s, comparable to that of M, but an order of magnitude greater than that of 4A. In Fig.4b, the right figure, we compare all the FSI considered in this work. Algorithm 4B, with one less force gradient evaluation, has only half the error of 4B. The one-parameter family algorithm ACB with $`t_0=0.138`$ has only one-third the error of 4C. The error height of ACB is fully two orders of magnitude smaller than those of non-forward symplectic integrators. In table 1, we give the inverse error height of each algorithm, $`1/|h_i|`$, normalized to that of RF. Thus, algorithm ACB’s error height is $`300`$ times smaller than that of RF and $`150`$ times smaller than that of algorithm M.

To further assess the convergence properties of these algorithms, we examine the convergence of the third body’s energy after one period as a function of the step size $`ϵ`$. The results are plotted in Fig.5. All can be very well fitted by single fourth order monomial $`c_iϵ^4`$ as shown by solid lines. One can basically read off the efficiency ranking of each algorithm from left to right following flatness of the convergence curve. The convergences of RK and RKN are similar, despite the fact that RK uses one more force evaluation. For this calculation, algorithm Cor is very efficient, requiring only one evaluation of the force and its gradient to best FR. But surprisingly, the second order kernel algorithm 2M seemed fourth order even without the use of correctors! It is nearly indistinguishable from the complete corrector algorithm Cor. There is a plausible explanation for this behavor. The choice of the modified force (13) is such that the second order error terms \[T,\[V,T\]\] and \[V,\[T,V\]\] have exactly the same coefficient but opposite in sign.

$$\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}\mathrm{e}^{ϵV^{}}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}ϵT}=\mathrm{e}^{ϵ\left(T+V+\frac{1}{24}ϵ^2[T,[V,T]]\frac{1}{24}ϵ^2[V,[T,V]]+\mathrm{}\right)},$$
(39)
Evidently, the magnitudes of \[T,\[V,T\]\] and \[V,\[T,V\]\] are very nearly equal and their associated errors cancel one another. We have explicitly checked that depending on whether the coefficient of the modified force is less or greater than 1/24, the energy error is positive or negative respectively, in accordance with (39).

As in the Jacobi constant case, all forward symplectic algorithms perform better than non-forward ones. Interestingly, algorithm 4ACB is substantially better than 4A but not 4C. Algorithm 4C and 4D appear to be anomalous; their error is definitely fourth order, but with exceedingly small coefficients $`c_i`$. In table 1, we give the inverse of error coefficient $`1/|c_i|`$ normalized to that of RF. Thus the error coefficient of RK or RKN is ten times larger than that of RF, while the error coefficient of 4C is nearly 2200 times smaller than that of RF. To give an more quantitative comparison, one should factor in the number of force and gradient evaluations. Although it is not unreasonable to assume that the gradient would require more effort than evaluting the force, when the force and gradient are evaluted at the same time, the additional effort to compute the gradient, as shown by (32), is minimal. A comparison with RF and M, which requires three and four force evaluations respectively, should give a reasonable gauge of FSI’s effectiveness. Taking the fourth root of $`1/|c_i|`$ gives the effective step size relative to RF for attaining the same error. Thus in the case of 4C one can use steps size $`(2200)^{1/4}7`$ times as large as RF’s, four times as large as M’s and 12 times as large as RF’s.

Some of the observed anomalous behavior may be due to the fact that we have choosen an end point that is too “tame”. After one period, the third body returns to a position that’s far from both attractors with no substantial error in the Jacobi constant. To test this hypothesis, we compute the energy again at mid period, when the third body has a close encounter and the error in the Jacobi constant is at a peak. This is shown in Fig.6. One immediately sees that in this case the kernel algorithm 2M converges quardratically as it should and is distinct from the fourth order corrector algorithm Cor. Moreover, the convergence of both 4C and 4D is now clearly fourth order and bested by the optimized algorithm 4ACB. However, fourth order fits to 4B and 4ACB are exceedingly unnatural, with very small coefficients. Both can be well fitted with a single eighth order curve as shown. The inverse of the error coefficient is a again given in Table 1. Despite some inexplicable behaviors, it is clear from Table 1 that forward symplectic integrator as a class, can be orders of magnitude more efficient than non-forward integrators.

## 5 Conclusions

Forward symplectic algorithms are the only composition algorithms possible for solving evolution equations with a time-irreversible kernel (Forbert and Chin, 2001; Auer et al., 2001). However, even for reversible equations FSI have been shown to be far more efficient than non-forward symplectic integrators (Chin, 1997; Chin and Chen, 2002). In this work, we have further demonstrated their efficiency in solving classical dynamical problems with time-dependent forces. In the circularly restricted three-body problem, this class of FSI can have errors orders of magnitude smaller than non-symplectic or non-forward algorithms. While FSI can be used for any classical calculations, such as molecular dynamcis (Omelyan, Mryglod and Folk, 2002), they are particularly ideal for doing long time, high precision evolution of gravitational few-body problems. The force gradient is easily calculable and no more time consuming than evaluating the force. In comparison to other algoirithms, FSI showed excellent convergence behavior even at close encounters. The existence of a parametrized family of algorithms allows one to optimize the algorithm for individual applications. This family of FSI should be applied to more realistic and more complex astrophysical problems.

While FSI have been largely overlooked in the development of classical symplectic integrators, they are precisely in accordance with McLachlan and Scovel’s recommendation (McLachlan and Scovel, 1996) that “derivative” symplectic algorithms should be developed. This work suggests that a systematic way of deriving higher order “derivative” algorithms is to devise factorization schemes that retain higher order commutators.

Process or corrector algorithms can achieve fourth order accurracy with only one evalutation of the force and its gradient. If 4A or 4B are used as kernels, one should be able to achieve sixth order accuaracy with only two evalutions of the force and one evaluation of the gradient. The use of fourth order FSI as kernel algorithms would generate a new family of sixth order process symplectic algorithms with minimal numbers of force evaluation. This work is currently in progress. If one does not insist on having purely forward time steps, then many higher order algorithms can be generated on the basis of these fourth order FSI. See extensive constructions by Omelyan, Mryglod and Folk (2002).

At this time, despite intense effort, no sixth order FSI has been found. At the other hand, no proof has been presented that this cannot be done. Clearly research in FSI is still in its infancy and deserves further studies.

This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation grants No. PHY-0100839.  Present address: Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77840.