Diagram spaces and symmetric spectra

Abstract

We present a general homotopical analysis of structured diagram spaces and discuss the relation to symmetric spectra. The main motivating examples are the I-spaces, which are diagrams indexed by finite sets and injections, and J-spaces, which are diagrams indexed by the Grayson-Quillen construction on the category of finite sets and bijections. We show that the category of I-spaces provides a convenient model for the homotopy category of spaces in which every E-infinity space can be rectified to a strictly commutative monoid. Similarly, the commutative monoids in the category of J-spaces model graded E-infinity spaces. Using the theory of J-spaces we introduce the graded units of a symmetric ring spectrum. The graded units detect periodicity phenomena in stable homotopy and we show how this can be applied to the theory of topological logarithmic structures.