Grothendieck rings of ordered subgroups of the rationals

Abstract

Let $G$ be a proper subgroup of $\mathbb Q$ and $S_G$ be the set of primes $p$ for which $G$ is $p$-divisible. We show that the model-theoretic Grothendieck ring of the ordered abelian group $(G;+,<)$ is a quotient of $(\mathbb Z/q\mathbb Z)[T]/(T+T^2)$, where $q$ is the largest odd integer that divides $p-1$ for all $p \notin S_G$. This implies that the Grothendieck ring of $(G;+,<)$ is trivial in various salient cases, for example when $S_G$ is finite, or when $S_G$ does not contain the set of all primes of the form $2^n +1$, $n\in \mathbb N$.