Structured ring spectra and displays (Q969686)

Complex oriented cohomology theories are commutative ring theories with natural Chern classes for complex bundles. By considering the first Chern class of the tensor product of two line bundles, we associate to a complex oriented theory \(E^\ast\) a formal group \(G_E\). Here ``formal group'' means \(1\)-parameter formal Lie group. This process is reversible: given a ring \(R\) and a formal group \(G\) over \(R\) so that the classifying map from \(R\) to the moduli stack of formal groups is flat, then there is an associated complex oriented cohomology theory \(E(R,G)\). Landweber's Exact Functor Theorem gives a convenient criterion for flatness [see \textit{P. S. Landweber}, Duke Math. J. 42, 499--505 (1975; Zbl 0358.55006)]. One can then ask whether we can construct a cohomology theory with power operations, analogous to Steenrod operations for ordinary cohomology modulo a prime. For this we need the representing spectrum to be an \(E_\infty\)-ring spectrum. Jacob Lurie has given a beautiful criterion to establish this richer structure: \(R\) must be \(p\)-complete, \(G\) must be the formal part of a \(p\)-divisible group and the resulting map from \(\text{Spec}(R)\) to a moduli stack of \(p\)-divisible groups must be formally étale. The point of this paper is to develop input for Lurie's theorem using the theory of displays developed by Zink and Lau [see e.g. \textit{E. Lau}, Invent. Math. 171, No.~3, 617--628 (2008; Zbl 1186.14048)]. This theory is a type of Dieudonneé theory for certain types of \(p\)-divisible groups; that is, it provides an equivalence of categories between \(p\)-divisible groups and a diagram category of modules. Lawson uses this theory in two ways. First, he uses displays and Serre duality to give a presentation of the moduli stack of \(p\)-divisible groups of fixed height and \(1\)-parameter formal part. Second, given a particular \(p\)-divisible group over a ring \(R\), he develops a method for calculating when the resulting map from \(\mathrm{Spec}(R)\) to the moduli stack is formally étale. Specifically he uses the display to write down a map from \(\mathrm{Spec}(R)\) to projective space and one must check whether this (much more concrete) map is étale. This map is a generalization of the Gross-Hopkins period map for Lubin-Tate space [see \textit{M. J. Hopkins} and \textit{B. H. Gross}, Equivariant vector bundles on the Lubin-Tate moduli space, in: Friedlander, Eric M. (ed.) et al., Topology and representation theory. Conference on the connections between topology and representation theory held at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (USA), May 1--5, 1992. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. Contemp. Math. 158, 23--88 (1994; Zbl 0807.14037)]. This is a remarkable and elegant paper.