On the homotopy of \(Q(3)\) and \(Q(5)\) at the prime 2 (Q341746)

The article under review belongs to the subject of computational stable homotopy theory. One of the longstanding goals of this subject is to understand the \(K(2)\)-local sphere. (The \(K(1)\)-local sphere is already well-understood.) The authors do not directly study the \(K(2)\)-local sphere, but rather some approximations \(Q(3)\) and \(Q(5)\). They carry out detailed calculations of the homotopy of these approximations. All of this hard work sheds light on the behavior of the \(K(2)\)-local sphere. This work builds on earlier computational work of Mahowald, Rezk, and others. The article focuses only on the hardest prime \(p = 2\).