Questions tagged [stable-homotopy]

Stable homotopy theory is that part of homotopy theory (and thus algebraic topology) concerned with all structure and phenomena that remain after sufficiently many applications of the suspension functor.

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What is known about the sum x^{n^2}/n?

It follows from a general theorem of Honda that the formal group with the logarithm $$ x+x^{2^s}/2+x^{3^s}/3+x^{4^s}/4+\cdots $$ has integer coefficients. I became interested in it because its $p$-...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
70 votes
6 answers
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third stable homotopy group of spheres via geometry?

It is ''well-known'' that the third stable homotopy group of spheres is cyclic of order $24$. It is also ''well-known'' that the quaternionic Hopf map $\nu:S^7 \to S^4$, an $S^3$-bundle, suspends to a ...
Johannes Ebert's user avatar
60 votes
2 answers
8k views

Are spectra really the same as cohomology theories?

Let $E \to F$ be a morphism of cohomology theories defined on finite CW complexes. Then by Brown representability, $E, F$ are represented by spectra, and the map $E \to F$ comes from a map of spectra. ...
Akhil Mathew's user avatar
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33 votes
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Nilpotence of the stable Hopf map via framed cobordism

The Pontryagin-Thom construction shows that the stable homotopy groups of spheres are the same as the groups of stably framed manifolds up to cobordism. Specifically the Hopf map corresponds to the ...
Noah Snyder's user avatar
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38 votes
4 answers
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What is a simplicial commutative ring from the point of view of homotopy theory?

Let $k$ be a field. There are two natural categories to consider: The category of simplicial commutative $k$-algebras. The category of connective $E_\infty$ $k$-algebras (i.e., chain complexes of $...
Akhil Mathew's user avatar
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122 votes
4 answers
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What do the stable homotopy groups of spheres say about the combinatorics of finite sets?

The Barratt-Priddy-Quillen(-Segal) theorem says that the following spaces are homotopy equivalent in an (essentially) canonical way: $\Omega^\infty S^\infty:=\varinjlim~ \Omega^nS^n$ $\mathbb{Z}\...
Daniel Litt's user avatar
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74 votes
9 answers
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understanding Steenrod squares

There is a function on $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$-cohomology called Steenrod squaring: $Sq^i:H^k(X,\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}) \to H^{k+i}(X,\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})$. (Coefficient group suppressed from ...
Aaron Mazel-Gee's user avatar
42 votes
4 answers
5k views

Integral cohomology (stable) operations

There have been a couple questions on MO, and elsewhere, that have made me curious about integral or rational cohomology operations. I feel pretty familiar with the classical Steenrod algebra and its ...
Sean Tilson's user avatar
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41 votes
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Why not a Roadmap for Homotopy Theory and Spectra?

MO has seen plenty of roadmap questions but oddly enough I haven't seen one for homotopy theory. As an algebraic geometer who's fond of derived categories I would like some guidance on how to build up ...
John Salvatierrez's user avatar
33 votes
1 answer
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Early stabilization in the homotopy groups of spheres

Thanks to Freudenthal we know that $\pi_{n+k}(S^n)$ is independent of $n$ as soon as $n \ge k+2$. However, I was looking at the table on Wikipedia of some of the homotopy groups of spheres and noticed ...
Dylan Wilson's user avatar
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28 votes
5 answers
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Modern source for spectra (including ring spectra)

I am looking for a modern introduction to spectra that improves on the treatment by Adams in his "Stable Homotopy and Generalized Homology" notes (by improves I mean taking into account what ...
25 votes
1 answer
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From the perspective of bordism categories, where does the ring structure on Thom spectra come from?

To fix ideas, let's consider the Thom spectrum of framed bordism $M$, the spectrum whose homotopy groups are the framed bordism groups. $M$ has a ring spectrum structure inducing the product of ...
Qiaochu Yuan's user avatar
22 votes
1 answer
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Why do homotopy theorists care whether or not $BP$ is $E_\infty$?

I have often heard that it is not known whether or not the Brown-Peterson spectrum $BP$ is an $E_\infty$-ring spectrum. Though I see that this is a somewhat natural question to ask, I have often ...
CWcx's user avatar
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21 votes
1 answer
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Motivation and potential applications of spectral algebraic geometry

Nowadays there is a lot of talk about derived algebraic geometry, but not so much about the related subject of spectral algebraic geometry. Now I'm curious what future is there for spectral algebraic ...
JDou9's user avatar
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20 votes
1 answer
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The cell structure of Thom spectra

I would like to understand the cell structure of integrally oriented Thom spectra. A Thom spectrum over a space $X$ is something you can build from a stable spherical bundle, which is classified by a ...
Eric Peterson's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
869 views

When do the polynomial algebra and free algebra coincide in brave new algebra?

Given an $\mathbb E_\infty$-ring (highly structured commutative ring spectrum if you want) $R$, we have the free $R$-algebra (on one generation) $R\{t\}\simeq \bigoplus_{n\ge 0} R_{\mathrm h\Sigma_n}$ ...
A Rock and a Hard Place's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
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Is the $\infty$-category of spectra “convenient”?

A 1991 paper of Lewis, titled “Is there a convenient category of spectra?” proves that there is no category $\mathrm{Sp}$ satisfying the following desiderata$^1$: There is a symmetric monoidal smash ...
Emily's user avatar
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16 votes
1 answer
804 views

Representability of Weil Cohomology Theories in Stable Motivic Homotopy Theory

My understanding is that one purpose of stable motivic homotopy theory is to emulate classical stable homotopy theory. In particular, we would like Weil cohomology theories to be representable by ...
user94118's user avatar
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15 votes
3 answers
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Stable homotopy category and the moduli space of formal groups

The usual disclaimer applies: I'm new to all this stuff, so be gentle. It seems like the spectrum, as defined by Balmer, of the stable homotopy category of finite complexes is something like $M_{FG}$,...
Dylan Wilson's user avatar
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9 votes
1 answer
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A heart for stable equivariant homotopy theory

Let $G$ be a finite group. I wonder whether the following statement is true, known and written down: There is a t-structure on the stable $G$-equivariant homotopy category such that the associated ...
user2146's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
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Which of the physics dualities are closest in essence to the Spanier-Whitehead duality (with a subquestion)?

First of all, what I want to ask is slightly more elaborate than what stands in the title (hence the subquestion). I am telling this since as it is, the title contains a meaningful question, but it ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Homotopy limit-colimit diagrams in stable model categories

It is shown in Remark 7.1.12 of (a newer version of) Mark Hovey's book Model Categories that, in a stable model category, homotopy pullback squares coincide with homotopy pushout squares. The argument ...
Rasmus's user avatar
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66 votes
1 answer
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Is there an octonionic analog of the K3 surface, with implications for stable homotopy groups of spheres?

The infamous K3 surface has many constructions in many fields ranging from algebraic geometry to algebraic topology. Its many properties are well known. For this question I am really interested in the ...
Chris Schommer-Pries's user avatar
51 votes
5 answers
5k views

What (if anything) unifies stable homotopy theory and Grothendieck's six functors formalism?

I know of two very general frameworks for describing generalizations of what a "cohomology theory" should be: Grothendieck's "six functors", and the theory of spectra. In the former, one assigns to ...
Dan Petersen's user avatar
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42 votes
2 answers
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What is an infinite prime in algebraic topology?

The links between algebraic topology (stable homotopy theory in particular) and number theory are nowadays abundant and fruitful. In one direction, there is chromatic homotopy theory, exploiting the ...
Anton Fetisov's user avatar
31 votes
4 answers
3k views

Fibrations and Cofibrations of spectra are "the same"

My question refers to a folklore statement that I have now seen a couple of times, but never really precise. One avatar is: "For spectra every cofibration is equivalent to a fibration" (e.g. in the ...
Simon Markett's user avatar
30 votes
2 answers
10k views

Open problems in algebraic topology and homotopy theory

Some time ago (I see it was initially written before 1999?) Mark Hovey assembled a list of open problems in algebraic topology. The list can be found here. Some of the problems I know about have been ...
26 votes
2 answers
2k views

Has anyone seen a nice map of multiplicative cohomology theories?

I have seen lots of descriptions of this map in the literature but never seen it nicely drawn anywhere. I could try to do it myself but I really lack expertise, hence am afraid to miss something or ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
25 votes
0 answers
1k views

Calabi-Yau cohomology?

My question here is going to be this -- but I'll give a bit of background to explain myself in a moment: What has been done/what results are available on Calabi-Yau cohomology in degree $n \geq 3$ (...
Urs Schreiber's user avatar
24 votes
3 answers
4k views

Is there a map of spectra implementing the Thom isomorphism?

A well known theorem in algebraic topology relates the (co)homology of the Thom space $X^\mu$ of a orientable vector bundle $\mu$ of dimension $n$ over a space $X$ to the (co)homology of $X$ itself: $...
skupers's user avatar
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23 votes
5 answers
3k views

What are _all_ of the exactness properties enjoyed by stable $\infty$-categories?

Alternate formulation of the question (I think): What's a precise version of the statement: "In a stable $\infty$-category, finite limits and finite colimits coincide"? Recall that a stable $\infty$-...
Tim Campion's user avatar
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22 votes
2 answers
6k views

References and resources for (learning) chromatic homotopy theory and related areas

What references and resources (e.g. video recorded lectures) are available for learning chromatic homotopy theory and related areas (such as formal geometry)?
20 votes
2 answers
2k views

Stable homotopy type theory?

This is a combined question, strictly speaking I am asking three questions concerning, respectively, homotopy type theory, stable homotopy theory and Yetter-Drinfeld modules. But I believe in the ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
17 votes
3 answers
3k views

Finiteness of stable homotopy groups of spheres

Since the work of Serre in the early 50's on homotopy groups of spheres, it is known that the homotopy group $\pi_k(S^n)$ is finite, except when $k=n$ (in which case the group is $\mathbb{Z}$), or ...
Andreas Holmstrom's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
2k views

Are $G$-spectra the same as modules over a "group ring spectrum"?

Let $G$ be a finite group (maybe this will also work when $G$ is compact, or something, but to be safe we'll let it be finite). I imagine it's quite natural to ask: is the category of $G$-spectra ...
Dylan Wilson's user avatar
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17 votes
2 answers
710 views

For which $n$ does there exist a closed manifold of (chromatic) type $n$?

Let $p$ be a prime and $n \in \mathbb N$. Does there exist a closed manifold which is of type $n$ after $p$-localization? When $n= 0$ the answer is yes. When $p = 2$ and $n = 1$ we can take $\mathbb R ...
Tim Campion's user avatar
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16 votes
1 answer
485 views

What is the value of $[S^3/G] \in \pi_3(Sphere)$ for a finite subgroup $G \subset SU(2)$?

Let $G\subset \mathrm{SU}(2)$ be a finite group. (These are famously classified through the McKay correspondence.) The Lie group framing of $\mathrm{SU}(2) = S^3$ descends to the quotient manifold $S^...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
16 votes
6 answers
2k views

Why are equivariant homotopy groups not RO(G)-graded?

I know very little about the fancy equivariant stable homotopy category, so I apologize if this question is silly for one reason or another, but: I think that stable homotopy, in the non-equivariant ...
Dylan Wilson's user avatar
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16 votes
3 answers
1k views

Isomorphism between two universal p-typical formal group laws

EDIT: I've tried to alter the question so that its basic nature is clearer, as it's been unclear to a number of people now. At any prime p, there is a graded polynomial ring $V \cong {\mathbb Z}_{(p)}...
Tyler Lawson's user avatar
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15 votes
2 answers
1k views

Must a weak homotopy equivalence induce an isomorphism between stable homotopy groups?

I'm confused by the following question: $f:X\to Y$ is a weak homotopy equivalence, that is $f_*:\pi_*(X)\to \pi_*(Y)$ is an isomorphism for any dimensional homotopy groups. However, for the stable ...
pvigato's user avatar
  • 153
14 votes
0 answers
299 views

Does virtual Morava K-theory have an Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequence?

In a recent question, Tim Campion was interested in analyzing the Morava $K$–theory of a space $X$ by dissecting the space into connective and coconnective parts: $$X(m, \infty) \to X \to X[0, m].$$ ...
Eric Peterson's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
652 views

Status of Thomason's idea for a symmetric monoidal model of stable homotopy - from his last paper

In 1995, Robert Thomason published “Symmetric monoidal categories model all connective spectra” in TAC. On page 2, he argues that symmetric monoidal categories are more convenient than “May’s ...
David White's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why $K(X) \longrightarrow G (X)$ is a Poincaré duality for K-theory?

It's well known that for Noetherian separated regular schemes the canonical map $$K(X) \longrightarrow G(X)$$ (Quillen uses $K'$ instead of $G$, though) is a weak equivalence. This statement is ...
user40276's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
830 views

Geometric interpretation of families in the stable homotopy groups of spheres

There are infinite families in the stable homotopy groups of spheres; many of these can be seen by looking for "periodicity" phenomena in the Adams-Novikov spectral sequence. An example is the image ...
Akhil Mathew's user avatar
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14 votes
2 answers
1k views

Exotic spheres and stable homotopy in all large dimensions?

Given that the kervaire invariant one problem has been solved in (almost) all dimensions....my question is whether there exists an exotic sphere in all sufficently lagre dimensions? Given the Kervaire-...
Mike's user avatar
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14 votes
2 answers
656 views

When is a stable $\infty$-category the stabilization of an $\infty$-topos?

Let $\mathcal X$ be a presentable $\infty$-category. Then the stabilization $Stab(\mathcal X)$ of $\mathcal X$ is the universal presentable stable category on $\mathcal X$. Conversely, if $\mathcal A$ ...
Tim Campion's user avatar
  • 60.6k
14 votes
0 answers
767 views

How to see the quaternionic hopf map generates the stable 3-stem?

I am looking for a direct proof that the quaternionic hopf map generates (after suspension) the 3rd stable homotopy group of spheres. There are some related MO questions, for example: third-stable-...
Chris Schommer-Pries's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why not a Stacks project for Homotopy Theory?

The lack of resources bridging the gap between what one finds in Hatcher's algebraic topology text and modern research on homotopy theory has been brought several times before on MathOverflow [1, 2, 3]...
Chromatic Homotopy Theory's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
606 views

Is there a non-zero ghost map between finite suspension spectra?

A morphism $f\colon X\to Y$ of spectra such that for every integer $n$ the induced map $\pi_n(f)\colon\pi_n(X)\to\pi_n(Y)$ on stable homotopy groups is zero is called a ghost map. Not every ghost map ...
user8463524's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
2k views

Connective spectra and infinite loop spaces

It seems to be standard that connective spectra are "the same" as infinite loop space. However, I do not understand the reason why the associated spectrum is connective. For me, an infinite loop ...
Matthias Ludewig's user avatar