Diagram spaces, diagram spectra and spectra of units (Q1954168)

Just as one can make a group of multiplicative units from a commutative ring, there is a spectrum of units that can be defined for any commutative ring object in the stable homotopy category. This spectrum of units is important in geometric topology, Rezk's logarithmic power operations and the study of \(tmf\). The original definition of this spectrum of units is due to May, Quinn and Ray and uses \(E_\infty\)-ring spectra as its model. A newer definition is due to Schlichtkrull and is based on commutative ring objects in symmetric spectra. The aim of this paper is to prove that these two constructions give equivalent spectra and to show how to compare them. The method used in this paper is to construct a model category of `structured spaces' for each of the following symmetric monoidal models for the stable homotopy category: symmetric spectra, orthogonal spectra, \(\mathbb{L}\)-spectra and \(S\)-modules. These categories will receive the infinite loop space functor \(\Omega^\infty\). For the categories of diagram spectra (symmetric and orthogonal), the categories of structured spaces are the corresponding categories of diagram spaces. The author proves that each of these model categories of structured spaces are Quillen equivalent. Furthermore these Quillen equivalences are compatible with the Quillen equivalences between the various categories of spectra via the \((\Sigma^\infty, \Omega^\infty)\)-adjunctions. This is a useful result in its own right, as it shows how to transfer infinite loop space information between the different models for spectra. This is a well written paper that carefully constructs all the required categories and model structures. An appendix on homotopy colimits over topological categories (where both the sets of morphisms and the set of objects have topologies) is included.