Higher associativity of Moore spectra (Q2136544)

For a prime number \(p\), one considers the Moore spectra \(\mathbb{S}/p^i\) defined to be the cofibre of multiplication by \(p^i\) on the sphere spectrum \(\mathbb{S}\). In contrast to algebra where \(\mathbb{Z}/p^i\) inherits a commutative, associative multiplication from \(\mathbb{Z}\), the Moore spectra \(\mathbb{S}/p^i\) need not admit a highly structured multiplication. For example \(\mathbb{S}/2\) does not admit a unital multiplication, \(\mathbb{S}/p^i\) never admits an \(E_\infty\)-structure, and \(\mathbb{S}/p\) for \(p\) odd admits an \(A_{p-1}\)-structure, but not an \(A_p\)-structure. In this paper, the author studies for which \(n\) the Moore spectra \(\mathbb{S}/p^i\) admit an \(A_n\)-structure. The key ingredient in the proof is a construction of \(\mathbb{S}/p^i\) as a Thom spectrum which allows the author to use a result of Lewis (in [\textit{L. G. Lewis jun.} et al., Equivariant stable homotopy theory. With contributions by J. E. McClure. Springer, Cham (1986; Zbl 0611.55001)]) and \textit{M. Ando} et al. [J. Topol. 7, No. 4, 1077--1117 (2014; Zbl 1316.55005)] to recast the problem in terms of the existence of certain \(A_n\)-maps.