The additivity of traces in stable $\infty$-categories

Abstract

We prove a version of J.P. May's theorem on the additivity of traces, in symmetric monoidal stable $\infty$-categories. Our proof proceeds via a categorification, namely we use the additivity of topological Hochschild homology as an invariant of stable $\infty$-categories and construct a morphism of spectra $\mathrm{THH}(\mathbf C)\to \mathrm{End}(\mathbf 1_\mathbf C)$ for $\mathbf C$ a stably symmetric monoidal rigid $\infty$-category. We also explain how to get a more general statement involving traces of finite (homotopy) colimits.