STABLE HOMOTOPY THEORY AND FORMAL GROUPS

Complex oriented ring spectra and formal groups Summary: I will study the structure of a class of spectra, called complex oriented ring spectra, that admit a theory of Chern classes for complex vector bundles. Examples include singular homology, complex K-theory, and bordism. In many cases, these spectra can be completely described by an algebraic invariant associated to them, namely their formal group. Formal groups are objects from algebraic geometry resembling Lie algebras.