Algebraic K-theory of group rings and the cyclotomic trace map

We prove that the Farrell-Jones assembly map for connective algebraic K-theory is rationally injective, under mild homological finiteness conditions on the group and assuming that a weak version of the Leopoldt-Schneider conjecture holds for cyclotomic fields. This generalizes a result of Bökstedt, Hsiang, and Madsen, and leads to a concrete description of a large direct summand of Kn(Z[G])⊗Z Q in terms of group homology. In many cases the number theoretic conjectures are true, so we obtain rational injectivity results about assembly maps, in particular for Whitehead groups, under finiteness assumptions on the group only. The proof uses the cyclotomic trace map to topological cyclic homology, Bökstedt-Hsiang-Madsen’s functor C, and new general injectivity results about the assembly maps for topological Hochschild homology and C.