Waldhausen K-theory of spaces via comodules

Abstract

Let $X$ be a simplicial set. We construct a novel adjunction between the categories of retractive spaces over $X$ and of $X_{+}$-comodules, then apply recent work on left-induced model category structures (arXiv:1401.3651v2 [math.AT],arXiv:1509.08154 [math.AT]) to establish the existence of a left proper, simplicial model category structure on the category of $X_+$-comodules, with respect to which the adjunction is a Quillen equivalence after localization with respect to some generalized homology theory. We show moreover that this model category structure stabilizes, giving rise to a model category structure on the category of $\Sigma^\infty X_{+}$-comodule spectra. The Waldhausen $K$-theory of $X$, $A(X)$, is thus naturally weakly equivalent to the Waldhausen $K$-theory of the category of homotopically finite $\Sigma^\infty X_{+}$-comodule spectra, with weak equivalences given by twisted homology. For $X$ simply connected, we exhibit explicit, natural weak equivalences between the $K$-theory of this category and that of the category of homotopically finite $\Sigma^{\infty}(\Omega X)_+$-modules, a more familiar model for $A(X)$. For $X$ not necessarily simply connected, we have localized versions of these results. For $H$ a simplicial monoid, the category of $\Sigma^{\infty}H_{+}$-comodule algebras admits an induced model structure, providing a setting for defining homotopy coinvariants of the coaction of $\Sigma^{\infty}H_{+}$ on a $\Sigma^{\infty}H_{+}$-comodule algebra, which is essential for homotopic Hopf-Galois extensions of ring spectra as originally defined by Rognes in arXiv:math/0502183v2} and generalized in arXiv:0902.3393v2 [math.AT]. An algebraic analogue of this was only recently developed, and then only over a field (arXiv:1401.3651v2 [math.AT]).