Uniqueness of products in higher algebraic K-theory (Q1113277)

This paper presents an alternate way of studying the multiplicative structure of higher K-theory. For the most part, the author restricts his attention to K-theories E defined on permutative categories U on which the composition BU\(\to \Omega^{\infty}E_{\infty}U=\cup \Omega^ nE_ nU\) is a group completion. He defines a transformation to be multiplicative in terms of strong pairings (as opposed to the weak pairings in the sense of Whitehead). He then shows that the product structure on any such higher algebraic K-theory E is equivalent to those of May, Waldhausen, Shimada-Shimakawa and a modification of Loday's. Much of the work revolves around the notion of \(S_*\)-spectra showing that pairings of \(S_*\)-spectra determine pairings of the stable category.