English

Real spin bordism and orientations of topological $\mathrm{K}$-theory

Algebraic Topology 2025-08-14 v2 K-Theory and Homology

Abstract

We construct a commutative orthogonal C2C_2-ring spectrum, MSpinRc\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}}, along with a C2C_2-EE_{\infty}-orientation MSpinRcKUR\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}} \to \mathrm{KU}_{\mathbb{R}} of Atiyah's Real K-theory. Further, we define EE_{\infty}-maps MSpin(MSpinRc)C2\mathrm{MSpin} \to (\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}})^{C_2} and MURMSpinRc\mathrm{MU}_{\mathbb{R}} \to \mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}}, which are used to recover the three well-known orientations of topological K\mathrm{K}-theory, MSpincKU\mathrm{MSpin}^c \to \mathrm{KU}, MSpinKO\mathrm{MSpin} \to \mathrm{KO}, and MURKUR\mathrm{MU}_{\mathbb{R}} \to \mathrm{KU}_{\mathbb{R}}, from the map MSpinRcKUR\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}} \to \mathrm{KU}_{\mathbb{R}}. We also show that the integrality of the A^\hat{A}-genus on spin manifolds provides an obstruction for the fixed points (MSpinRc)C2(\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}})^{C_2} to be equivalent to MSpin\mathrm{MSpin}, using the Mackey functor structure of πMSpinRc\underline{\pi}_*\mathrm{MSpin}^c_{\mathbb{R}}. In particular, the usual map MSpinMSpinc\mathrm{MSpin} \to \mathrm{MSpin}^c does not arise as the inclusion of fixed points for any C2C_2-EE_{\infty}-ring spectrum.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.00963,
  title  = {Real spin bordism and orientations of topological $\mathrm{K}$-theory},
  author = {Zachary Halladay and Yigal Kamel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00963},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

v2: 27 pages, a few minor edits; accepted version, to appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society