Algebra/Topology seminar

Nathaniel Stapleton, The character of the total power operation

Abstract: In the 90's Goerss, Hopkins, and Miller proved that the Morava E-theories are E_\infty-ring spectra in a unique way. Since then several people including Ando, Hopkins, Strickland, and Rezk have worked on explaining the effect of this structure on the homotopy groups of the spectrum. In this talk, I will present joint work with Barthel that shows how a form of character theory due to Hopkins, Kuhn, and Ravenel can be used to reduce this problem to a combination of combinatorics and the GL_n(Q_p)-action on the Drinfeld ring of full level structures which shows up in the local Langlands correspondence.