Equivariant formal group laws and complex-oriented spectra over primary cyclic groups: elliptic curves, Barsotti-Tate groups, and other examples (Q2063066)

One-dimensional formal group laws and complex oriented cohomology theories are central objects of study in chromatic homotopy theory. A natural question is whether this theory has a \(G\)-equivariant analogue. In this paper, the authors construct a family of \(\mathbb{Z}/p^r\)-equivariant formal group laws and complex-oriented spectra associated to elliptic curves and \(p\)-divisible groups. The starting point of their construction is the Cartesian square (6) in Theorem 1 for the \(p\)-torsion subgroup of a Weierstrass elliptic curve \(E\). The formal group law associated to \(E\) is Landweber-exact, yielding an elliptic cohomology theory that is represented by a commutative ring spectrum \(\mathcal{E}\). The bottom row and the right column of the Cartesian square (6) can be realized as the coefficients of part of a Tate diagram in \(\mathbb{Z}/p\)-equivariant homotopy theory (page 646). In this way, the authors construct a \(\mathbb{Z}/p\)-equivariant elliptic spectrum \(\mathcal{E}_{\mathbb{Z}/p}\) as the homotopy pullback of the diagram (12). The spectrum \(\mathcal{E}_{\mathbb{Z}/p}\) is complex-oriented and hence possesses a \(\mathbb{Z}/p\)-equivariant formal group law. The same method is applied in Section 6 to construct \(\mathbb{Z}/p\)-equivariant Barsotti-Tate spectra attached to the universal deformation rings of \(p\)-divisible groups over perfect fields with one-dimensional formal parts. The authors further extend this construction to \(\mathbb{Z}/p^r\)-equivariant spectra where \(r>1\). In this case, the construction involves lifting a staircase-shaped diagram (30) of affine subschemes of the \(p^r\)-torsion subgroup of a \(p\)-divisible group, to the isotropy-separation diagram (27) for \(\mathbb{Z}/p^r\)-equivariant spectra.