Generalizing Witt vector construction (1211.3508v3)

Abstract: The purpose of this this paper is to generalize the functors arising from the theory of Witt vectors duto to Cartier. Given a polynomial $g(q)\in \mathbb Z[q]$, we construct a functor ${\overline {W}}^{g(q)}$ from the category of $\mathbb Z[q]$-algebras to that of commutative rings. When $q$ is specialized into an integer $m$, it produces a functor from the category of commutative rings with unity to that of commutative rings. In a similar way, we also construct several functors related to ${\overline { W}}^{g(q)}$. Functorial and structural properties such as induction, restriction, classification and unitalness will be investigated intensively.