ABSTRACT:

Picard groups, Grothendieck rings, and Burnside rings
of categories

J.P. May

The University of Chicago

may@math.uchicago.edu

For Saunders Mac Lane, on his 90th birthday

April 20, 2000

subjclass: Primary 18D10, 18E30, 18G55, 55U35


We discuss the Picard group, the Grothendieck ring, 
and the Burnside ring of a symmetric monoidal category, 
and we consider examples from algebra, homological 
algebra, topology, and algebraic geometry.