THE TOM DIECK SPLITTING THEOREM IN EQUIVARIANT MOTIVIC HOMOTOPY THEORY

We establish, in the setting of equivariant motivic homotopy theory for a finite group, a version of tom Dieck’s splitting theorem for the fixed points of a suspension spectrum. Along the way we establish structural results and constructions for equivariant motivic homotopy theory of independent interest. This includes geometric fixed-point functors and the motivic Adams isomorphism.

Norms in motivic homotopy theory

If $f : S' \to S$ is a finite locally free morphism of schemes, we construct a symmetric monoidal "norm" functor $f_\otimes : \mathcal{H}_{\bullet}(S')\to \mathcal{H}_{\bullet}(S)$, where $\mathcal{H}_\bullet(S)$ is the pointed unstable motivic homotopy category over $S$. If $f$ is finite étale, we show that it stabilizes to a functor $f_\otimes : \mathcal{S}\mathcal{H}(S') \to \mathcal{S}\mathcal{H}(S)$, where $\mathcal{S}\mathcal{H}(S)$ is the $\mathbb{P}^1$-stable motivic homotopy category over $S$. Using these norm functors, we define the notion of a normed motivic spectrum, which is an enhancement of a motivic $E_\infty$-ring spectrum. The main content of this text is a detailed study of the norm functors and of normed motivic spectra, and the construction of examples. In particular: we investigate the interaction of norms with Grothendieck's Galois theory, with Betti realization, and with Voevodsky's slice filtration; we prove that the norm functors categorify Rost's multiplicative transfers on Grothendieck-Witt rings; and we construct normed spectrum structures on the motivic cohomology spectrum $H\mathbb{Z}$, the homotopy $K$-theory spectrum $KGL$, and the algebraic cobordism spectrum $MGL$. The normed spectrum structure on $H\mathbb{Z}$ is a common refinement of Fulton and MacPherson's mutliplicative transfers on Chow groups and of Voevodsky's power operations in motivic cohomology.

Torus actions, Morse homology, and the Hilbert scheme of points on affine space

We formulate a conjecture on actions of the multiplicative group in motivic homotopy theory. In short, if the multiplicative group G_m acts on a quasi-projective scheme U such that U is attracted as t approaches 0 in G_m to a closed subset Y in U, then the inclusion from Y to U should be an A^1-homotopy equivalence. We prove several partial results. In particular, over the complex numbers, the inclusion is a homotopy equivalence on complex points. The proofs use an analog of Morse theory for singular varieties. Application: the Hilbert scheme of points on affine n-space is homotopy equivalent to the subspace consisting of schemes supported at the origin.

THE ZEROTH -STABLE HOMOTOPY SHEAF OF A MOTIVIC SPACE

We establish a kind of ‘degree $0$ Freudenthal ${\mathbb {G}_m}$ -suspension theorem’ in motivic homotopy theory. From this we deduce results about the conservativity of the $\mathbb P^1$ -stabilization functor. In order to establish these results, we show how to compute certain pullbacks in the cohomology of a strictly homotopy-invariant sheaf in terms of the Rost–Schmid complex. This establishes the main conjecture of [2], which easily implies the aforementioned results.

Stable homotopy groups of spheres

We discuss the current state of knowledge of stable homotopy groups of spheres. We describe a computational method using motivic homotopy theory, viewed as a deformation of classical homotopy theory. This yields a streamlined computation of the first 61 stable homotopy groups and gives information about the stable homotopy groups in dimensions 62 through 90. As an application, we determine the groups of homotopy spheres that classify smooth structures on spheres through dimension 90, except for dimension 4. The method relies more heavily on machine computations than previous methods and is therefore less prone to error. The main mathematical tool is the Adams spectral sequence.