arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jack Morava.
Recent work in higher algebra allows the reinterpretation of a classical description of the Eilenberg-MacLane spectrum $H\mathbb{Z}$ as a Thom spectrum, in terms of a kind of derived Galois theory. This essentially expository talk summarizes some of this work, and suggests an interpretation in terms of configuration spaces and monoidal functors on them, with some analogies to a topological field theory.
We consider an oriented version of the stable symplectic category defined in \cite{N}. We show that the group of monoidal automorphisms of this category, that fix each object, contains a natural subgroup isomorphic to the solvable quotient (or a graded-abelian quotient) of the Grothendieck--Teichmüller group. This establishes a stable version of a conjecture of Kontsevich which states that groups closely related to the Grothendieck--Teichmüller group act on the moduli space of certain field theories \cite{KO}. The above quotient of the Grothendieck--Teichmüller group is also shown to be the motivic group of monoidal automorphisms of a canonical representation (or fiber functor) on the stable symplectic category.
Ravenel proved the remarkable fact that the $K$-theoretic localization $L_K S^0$ of the sphere spectrum has $\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}$ as homotopy group in dimension -2. Mike Hopkins' chromatic splitting conjecture implies more generally that there are $3^{n-1}$ copies of $(\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z})_p$ in the homotopy groups of the $E(n)$-localization of $S^0$; but where these copies occur can be confusing. We try here to simplify this book-keeping.
Waldhausen's $K$-theory of the sphere spectrum (closely related to the algebraic $K$-theory of the integers) is a naturally augmented $S^0$-algebra, and so has a Koszul dual. Classic work of Deligne and Goncharov implies an identification of the rationalization of this (covariant) dual with the Hopf algebra of functions on the motivic group for their category of mixed Tate motives over $\Z$. This paper argues that the rationalizations of categories of non-commutative motives defined recently by Blumberg, Gepner, and Tabuada consequently have natural enrichments, with morphism objects in the derived category of mixed Tate motives over $\Z$. We suggest that homotopic descent theory lifts this structure to define a category of motives defined not over $\Z$ but over the sphere ring-spectrum $S^0$.
It is widely understood that the quotient space of a topological group action can have a complicated combinatorial structure, indexed somehow by the sotropy groups of the action, but how best to record this structure seems unclear. This sketch defines a database category of orbit types for a proper Lie groupoid (based on recent work with roots in the theory of geometric quantization) as an attempt to capture some of this information.
We conjecture the existence of a `compactified' version of Fukaya's homology for symplectic manifolds, which carries a canonical 2-Gerstenhaber algebra structure. This may help to understand the 2-Lie algebra structure involved in models for interacting D-branes.
We investigate the relationship between complex and symplectic cobordism localized away from the prime~$2$ and show that these theories are related much as a real Lie group is related to its complexification. This suggests that ideas from the theory of symmetric spaces might be used to illuminate these subjects. In particular, we give an explicit equivalence of ring spectra \[ MSp[1/2]\wedge Sp/U_+\simeq MU[1/2] \] and deduce that $MU[1/2]$ is a wedge of copies of $MSp[1/2]$. We discuss the implications for the structure of the stable operation algebra $MSp[1/2]^*MSp[1/2]$ and the dual cooperation algebra $MSp[1/2]_*MSp[1/2]$. Finally we describe some related Witt vector algebra and apply our results to the study of formal involutions on the category of formal group laws over a $\mathbb{Z}[1/2]$-algebra.
The group of extensions (as in the title), endowed with something like a connection at Archimedean infinity, is isomorphic to the adéle-class group of $\Q$: which is a topological group with interesting Haar measure.}
We sketch a quick and dirty geometric approach to the Tate-Swan cohomology of equivariant spectra, illustrating it with conjectural applications to Atiyah-Segal $K$-theory of circle actions, and a possible geometric model for the topological cyclic homology of the sphere spectrum.
The orientable cover of the moduli space of real genus zero algebraic curves with marked points is a compact aspherical manifold tiled by associahedra, which resolves the singularities of the space of phylogenetic trees. The resolution maps planar metric trees to their underlying abstract representatives, collapsing and folding an explicit geometric decomposition of the moduli space into cubes. This decomposition endows the resolving space with an interesting canonical pseudometric. The second part of this paper defines a related (stacky) resolution of a space of real quadratic forms, and suggests, perhaps without much justification, that systems of oscillators parametrized by such objects may provide useful models in genomics.
In a previous paper, we showed that the orientable cover of the moduli space of real genus zero algebraic curves with marked points is a compact aspherical manifold tiled by associahedra, which resolves the singularities of the space of phylogenetic trees. In this draft of a sequel, we construct a related (stacky) resolution of a space of real quadratic forms, and suggest, perhaps without much justification, that systems of oscillators parametrized by such objects may may provide useful models in genomics.
We suggest a generalization of π_0 for topological groupoids, which encodes incidence relations among the strata of the associated quotient object, and argue for its utility by example, starting from the orbit categories of the theory of compact Lie groups. One of the points of this note is that Thom's theory of structurally stable forms fits quite nicely with the categorical theory of databases developed recently by D. Spivak; the other is that the stratifications studied by Thom are closely related to the phase transitions studied in physics, and that the generalization of π_0 proposed here may be useful in their study: in particular, in organizing our understanding of the scaling laws which naturally accompany such phenomena, in the theory of condensed matter, biology, finance ...
We describe integral lifts K(L), indexed by local fields L of degree n = [L:\Q_p], of the extraordinary cohomology theories K(n), and apply the generalized character theory of Hopkins, Kuhn and Ravenel to identify K(L)(BG) \otimes \Q$, for a finite group G, as a ring of functions on a certain scheme \frak C_LG étale over L, whose points are conjugacy classes of homomorphisms from the valuation ring of L to G. When L is \Q_p this specializes to a classical theorem of Artin and Atiyah.
The Hirzebruch genus of complex-oriented manifolds associated to the Gamma-function lifts to a ring-homomorphism defined by a family of deformations of the Dirac operator, parametrized by the homogeneous space Sp/U.
Conformal nets are a classical topic in quantum field theory: they assign operator algebras to one-dimensional manifolds, and have close connections with one-dimensional topological field theories. It seems to be well-known that the usual axioms for these constructions imply close relations between the action of the projective group on the line, and Connes' intrinsic flow on $C^*$-algebras. This note attempts to pin down this specific fact, in terms of a category of (noncommutative) algebras and equivalence classes, under inner automorphisms, of homomorphisms between them. That category may be of independent interest.
Baker and Richter construct a remarkable $A_\infty$ ring-spectrum $MΞ$ whose elements possess characteristic numbers associated to quasisymmetric functions; its relations, on one hand to the theory of noncommutative formal groups, and on the other to the theory of omnioriented (quasi)toric manifolds [in the sense of Buchstaber, Panov, and Ray], seem worth investigating.
K. Hess's theory of homotopical descent, applied to the large categories of motives defined recently by Blumberg, Gepner, and Tabuada, suggests that the Koszul dual of Waldhausen's K-theory of the sphere spectrum, regarded as a supplemented algebra via the Dennis trace, plays a very general role as a kind of motivic group. After tensoring with the rationals, the resulting Hopf algebra has close relations to the ring of quasi-symmetric functions and work of Baker and Richter on one hand, and on the other to work of Deligne and others on the motivic group for mixed Tate motives.
This is an old talk about Boardman's work in Z/2-equivariant unoriented cobordism. It appeared long ago, but it discusses a useful geometric interpretation of Tate cohomology which doesn't seem to be widely known. I'm posting it in an attempt to advertise those ideas.