On the Construction of Elliptic Cohomology (Q4024451)

The author gives a simplified proof of the existence of elliptic cohomology. This is done by an algebraic construction starting from complex cobordism theory, as has been outlined in the reviewer's paper [Elliptic cohomology and modular forms, in ``Elliptic curves and modular forms in algebraic topology'', Proc, Conf., Princeton/NJ 1986, Lect. Notes Math. 1326, 55-68 (1988; Zbl 0649.57022)]. The main result is more general than the one due to the reviewer, \textit{D. Ravenel} and \textit{R. Stong}, since homology and cohomology theories are obtained with coefficient rings \[ \mathbb{Z}[\tfrac 12,\delta,\varepsilon,P(\delta,\varepsilon)^{-1}] \] for any homogeneous polynomial of positive degree with respect to the grading in which \(\deg\delta=4\) and \(\deg\varepsilon=8\). [In the original construction \(P(\delta,\varepsilon)\), was taken to be \(\varepsilon\), \(\varepsilon- \delta^ 2\), or a product in degree 24 involving both \(\varepsilon\) and \(\varepsilon-\delta^ 2\) as factors.] The author goes on to clarify questions of uniqueness and ring structure on spectra obtained by the exact functor theorem, and extends his arguments to obtain variants of elliptic cohomology from Hirzebruch's elliptic genera of level \(N\).