Summary

The eCHT Commutative Ring Spectra Reading Seminar is an online reading seminar in Winter 2021. The target audience is graduate students and postdoctoral faculty, although more senior faculty are also welcome.

Commutative ring spectra capture much of the important structure used in the last century to describe the stable structure of spaces.  In the 1990’s, foundational work demonstrated that the observed structure has its origins in clear and conceptually pleasing mathematical objects.  These objects not only hold important information about other mathematics, but are interesting, intricate and intriguing in their own right.  The leap from algebra to spectra only forces a dramatic turn of events once commutativity enters the picture.

We aim at providing foundational background, as well as a selection of the applications to the main examples and more recent developments.  The precise list of topics will be determined by participant interest.

Prerequisites

Participants should already have some background in stable homotopy theory.  This survey article is a good introduction to the topics that we will study:

Birgit Richter,  Commutative ring spectra, to appear in Stable categories and structured ring spectra (available at #39 here).

Expectations

Participants in the seminar will:

• Attend weekly online presentations.
• Give at least one presentation.
• Spend approximately one hour per week preparing for each presentation by skimming the material to be presented.
• Participate actively in an online discussion board on Canvas, by posting comments, asking questions, or responding to other comments.

The work of the seminar will remain private among the participants. We may record presentations, but only for use by other participants. Our discussion board will not be made available to the public.

Presentations can be given with prepared beamer slides, or with hand-written notes on a tablet. See recent eCHT seminar recordings for some examples of both styles.

Students are encouraged to obtain independent study credit from their home universities for their participation in the seminar, but this is not required.

Organizers

The eCHT Commutative Ring Spectra Reading Seminar is organized by Bjorn Dundas (Bergen) and Hana Kong (Chicago). Contact either organizer for more information.

Application

Please submit an application form by Sunday January 3 if you are interested in participating.

Schedule

The seminar meeting time is 11:00am (eastern time) on Tuesdays starting 19 January and ending 27 April.