A theorem on multiplicative cell attachments with an application to Ravenel's \(X(n)\) spectra (Q2274445)

Let \(\mathbb E_k\) be the little \(k\)-disks operad (for \(0 \le k \le \infty\)). For an \(\mathbb E_{k+1}\)-ring spectrum \(A\) and an element \(\alpha \in \pi_d(A)\), we can obtain the \textit{versal \(\mathbb E_k\)-\(A\)-algebra of characteristic \(\alpha\)}, \(A // \mathbb E_k \alpha\), which is defined by a pushout in \(\mathbb E_k\)-\(A\)-algebras involving the adjunction equivalence \(LMod_A(\Sigma^dA, A) \rightarrow Alg_A^{\mathbb E_k}(F^{\mathbb E_k}(\Sigma^dA),A)\) (Here, \(LMod_A\) is the \(\mathbb E_k\)-monoidal quasicategory of modules over \(A\), \(Alg_A^{\mathbb E_k}\) is the quasicategory of \(\mathbb E_k\)-algebras in \(LMod_A\), and \(F^{\mathbb E_k}(M)\) stands for the free \(\mathbb E_k\)-\(A\)-algebra on the \(A\)-module argument \(M\), considered without any operadic structure.) This construction is intuitively viewed as the process of attaching an \(\mathbb E_k\)-\(A\)-cell along \(\alpha\) to the \(\mathbb E_{k+1}\)-ring spectrum \(A\), and this paper studies the effect this attachement causes on the homotopy of the objects involved, whenever \(A\) is connective. The main result is Theorem 1, stating that there is an isomorphism between the homotopy groups of \(A // \mathbb E_k \alpha\) and of \(\mathrm{cof}(\bar \alpha)\), the cofiber of the self-map associated to \(\alpha\), in degrees less than \(2d\). This result is proved in the framework of the theory of quasicategories, some of whose results are presented in an appendix. In Section 3, the author applies this result to the homotopy groups of Ravenel's \(X(n)\) spectra. This appears in Corollary 2, stating that \(\pi_{2n-1}(X(n))\) is cyclic for all \(n \ge 1\). The generator \(\chi_n\) for each of these groups was constructed by the author in a previous paper, and arises from the fibre sequence \(\Omega SU(n) \rightarrow \Omega SU(n+1) \rightarrow \Omega S^{2n-1}\) and the fact that \(X(n)\) is a quotient of \(\mathbb S\) by an action of \(\Omega^2 SU(n)\). One can construct \(X(n+1)\) from \(X(n)\) by attaching an \(\mathbb E_1\)-\(X(n)\)-cell along \(\chi_n\); Theorem 2, however, shows that this choice of generator is unnecessary for the construction, if we consider localization at a prime \(p\): \(X(n+1)_{(p)}\) is obtained from \(X(n)_{(p)}\) by attaching an \(\mathbb E_1\)-\(X(n)_{(p)}\)-cell along \textit{any} generator of the cyclic group \(\pi_{2n-1}(X(n)_{(p)})\). For each odd integer \(k\), Section 4 constructs a sequence of \(\mathbb E_k\)-ring spectra \(\{ X(n,k) \}_{n \ge 0}\) with \(X(0,k) \simeq \mathbb S\) and whose colimit under \(n\) is equivalent to the spectrum \(MU\). These spectra \(X(n,k)\) are shown to satisfy similar properties to the \(X(n)\), and in particular have homotopy groups isomorphic to those of \(MU\) in degrees less than or equal to \(2n-k-1\) (Lemma 1.)