A tangent category is a categorical abstraction of the tangent bundle construction for smooth manifolds. In that context, Cockett and Cruttwell develop the notion of differential bundle which, by work of MacAdam, generalizes the notion of smooth vector bundle to the abstract setting. Here we provide a new characterization of differential bundles and show that, up to isomorphism, a differential bundle is determined by its projection map and zero section. We show how these results can be used to quickly identify differential bundles in various tangent categories.

We show that the Koszul dual of an E_n-operad in spectra is O(n)-equivariantly equivalent to its n-fold desuspension. To this purpose we introduce a new O(n)-operad of Euclidean spaces R_n, the barycentric operad, that is fibred over simplexes and has homeomorphisms as structure maps; we also introduce its sub-operad of restricted little n-discs D_n, that is an E_n-operad. The duality is realized by an unstable explicit S-duality pairing (F_n)_+ \smash BD_n \to S_n, where B is the bar-cooperad construction, F_n is the Fulton-MacPherson E_n-operad, and the dualizing object S_n is an operad of spheres that are one-point compactifications of star-shaped neighbourhoods in R_n. We also identify the Koszul dual of the operad inclusion map E_n \to E_{n+m} as the (n+m)-fold desuspension of an unstable operad map E_{n+m} \to \Sigma^m E_n defined by May.

We make precise the analogy between Goodwillie's calculus of functors in homotopy theory and the differential calculus of smooth manifolds by introducing a higher-categorical framework of which both theories are examples. That framework is an extension to infinity-categories of the tangent categories of Cockett and Cruttwell (introduced originally by Rosick\'y). The basic data of a tangent infinity-category consist of an endofunctor, that plays the role of the tangent bundle construction, together with various natural transformations that mimic structure possessed by the ordinary tangent bundles of smooth manifolds. The role of the tangent bundle functor in Goodwillie calculus is played by Lurie's tangent bundle for infinity-categories, introduced to generalize the cotangent complexes of Andr\'e, Quillen and Illusie. We show that Lurie's construction admits the additional structure maps and satisfies the conditions needed to form a tangent infinity-category which we refer to as the Goodwillie tangent structure. Cockett and Cruttwell (and others) have started to develop various aspects of differential geometry in the abstract context of tangent categories, and we begin to apply those ideas to Goodwillie calculus. For example, we show that the role of Euclidean spaces in the calculus of manifolds is played in Goodwillie calculus by the stable infinity-categories. We also show that Goodwillie's n-excisive functors are the direct analogues of n-jets of smooth maps between manifolds; to state that connection precisely, we develop a notion of tangent (infinity,2)-category and show that Goodwillie calculus is best understood in that context.

We describe dual notions of tangent bundle for an infinity-topos, each underlying a tangent infinity-category in the sense of Bauer, Burke and the author. One of those notions is Lurie's tangent bundle functor for presentable infinity-categories, and the other is its adjoint. We calculate that adjoint for injective infinity-toposes, where it is given by applying Lurie's tangent bundle on infinity-categories of points.

We prove two theorems about Goodwillie calculus and use those theorems to describe new models for Goodwillie derivatives of functors between pointed compactly-generated infinity-categories. The first theorem say that the construction of higher derivatives for spectrum-valued functors is a Day convolution of copies of the first derivative construction. The second theorem says that the derivatives of any functor can be realized as natural transformation objects for derivatives of spectrum-valued functors. Together these results allow us to construct an infinity-operad that models the derivatives of the identity functor on any pointed compactly-generated infinity-category. Our main example is the infinity-category of algebras over a stable infinity-operad, in which case we show that the derivatives of the identity essentially recover the same infinity-operad, making precise a well-known slogan in Goodwillie calculus. We also describe a bimodule structure on the derivatives of an arbitrary functor, over the infinity-operads given by the derivatives of the identity on the source and target, and we conjecture a chain rule that generalizes previous work of Arone and the author in the case of functors of pointed spaces and spectra.

We survey the theory and applications of Goodwillie's calculus of homotopy functors and related topics.

Working in the context of symmetric spectra, we consider any higher algebraic structures that can be described as algebras over an operad O. We prove that the fundamental adjunction comparing O-algebra spectra with coalgebra spectra over the associated comonad K, via topological Quillen homology (or TQ-homology), can be turned into an equivalence of homotopy theories by replacing O-algebras with the full subcategory of 0-connected O-algebras. This resolves in the affirmative the 0-connected case of a conjecture of Francis-Gaitsgory. This derived Koszul duality result can be thought of as the spectral algebra analog of the fundamental work of Quillen and Sullivan on the rational homotopy theory of spaces, and the subsequent p-adic and integral work of Goerss and Mandell on cochains and homotopy type---the following are corollaries of our main result: (i) 0-connected O-algebra spectra are weakly equivalent if and only if their TQ-homology spectra are weakly equivalent as derived K-coalgebras, and (ii) if a K-coalgebra spectrum is 0-connected and cofibrant, then it comes from the TQ-homology spectrum of an O-algebra. We construct the spectral algebra analog of the unstable Adams spectral sequence that starts from the TQ-homology groups TQ_*(X) of an O-algebra X, and prove that it converges strongly to pi_*(X) when X is 0-connected.

The aim of this short paper is to prove a TQ-Whitehead theorem for nilpotent structured ring spectra. We work in the framework of symmetric spectra and algebras over operads in modules over a commutative ring spectrum. Our main result can be thought of as a TQ-homology analog for structured ring spectra of Dror's generalized Whitehead theorem for topological spaces; here TQ-homology is short for topological Quillen homology. We also prove retract theorems for the TQ-completion and homotopy completion of nilpotent structured ring spectra.

The Taylor tower of a functor from based spaces to spectra can be classified according to the action of a certain comonad on the collection of derivatives of the functor. We describe various equivalent conditions under which this action can be lifted to the structure of a module over the Koszul dual of the little L-discs operad. In particular, we show that this is the case when the functor is a left Kan extension from a certain category of `pointed framed L-manifolds' and pointed framed embeddings. As an application we prove that the Taylor tower of Waldhausen's algebraic K-theory of spaces functor is classified by an action of the Koszul dual of the little 3-discs operad.

Let F be a homotopy functor with values in the category of spectra. We show that partially stabilized cross-effects of F have an action of a certain operad. For functors from based spaces to spectra, it is the Koszul dual of the little discs operad. For functors from spectra to spectra it is a desuspension of the commutative operad. It follows that the Goodwillie derivatives of F are a right module over a certain "pro-operad". For functors from spaces to spectra, the pro-operad is a resolution of the topological Lie operad. For functors from spectra to spectra, it is a resolution of the trivial operad. We show that the Taylor tower of the functor F can be reconstructed from this structure on the derivatives.

Working in the context of symmetric spectra, we prove higher homotopy excision and higher Blakers-Massey theorems, and their duals, for algebras and left modules over operads in the category of modules over a commutative ring spectrum (e.g., structured ring spectra).

We describe new structure on the Goodwillie derivatives of a functor, and we show how the full Taylor tower of the functor can be recovered from this structure. This new structure takes the form of a coalgebra over a certain comonad which we construct, and whose precise nature depends on the source and target categories of the functor in question. The Taylor tower can be recovered from standard cosimplicial cobar constructions on the coalgebra formed by the derivatives. We get from this an equivalence between the homotopy category of polynomial functors and that of bounded coalgebras over this comonad. For functors with values in the category of spectra, we give a rather explicit description of the associated comonads and their coalgebras. In particular, for functors from based spaces to spectra we interpret this new structure as that of a divided power right module over the operad formed by the derivatives of the identity on based spaces.

We show that the category of algebraically cofibrant objects in a combinatorial and simplicial model category A has a model structure that is left-induced from that on A. In particular, it follows that any presentable model category is Quillen equivalent (via a single Quillen equivalence) to one in which all objects are cofibrant.

We extend bar-cobar duality, defined for operads of chain complexes by Getzler and Jones, to operads of spectra in the sense of stable homotopy theory. Our main result is the existence of a Quillen equivalence between the category of reduced operads of spectra ( with the projective model structure) and a new model for the homotopy theory of cooperads of spectra. The crucial construction is of a weak equivalence of operads between the Boardman-Vogt W-construction for an operad P, and the cobar-bar construction on P. This weak equivalence generalizes a theorem of Berger and Moerdijk that says the W- and cobar-bar constructions are isomorphic for operads of chain complexes.Our model for the homotopy theory of cooperads is based on 'pre-cooperads'. These can be viewed as cooperads in which the structure maps are zigzags of maps of spectra that satisfy coherence conditions. Our model structure on pre-cooperads is such that every object is weakly equivalent to an actual cooperad, and weak equivalences between cooperads are detected in the underlying symmetric sequences.We also interpret our results in terms of a 'derived Koszul dual' for operads of spectra, which is analogous to the Ginzburg-Kapranov dg-dual. We show that the double derived Koszul dual of an operad P is equivalent to P (under some finiteness hypotheses) and that the derived Koszul construction preserves homotopy colimits, finite homotopy limits and derived mapping spaces for operads.

We consider Apollonian circle packings of a half Euclidean plane. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for two such packings to be related by a Euclidean similarity (that is, by translations, reflections, rotations and dilations) and describe explicitly the group of self-similarities of a given packing. We observe that packings with a non-trivial self-similarity correspond to positive real numbers that are the roots of quadratic polynomials with rational coefficients. This is reflected in a close connection between Apollonian circle packings and continued fractions which allows us to completely classify such packings up to similarity.

We consider the composition product of symmetric sequences in the case where the underlying symmetric monoidal structure does not commute with coproducts. Even though this composition product is not a monoidal structure on symmetric sequences, it has enough structure, namely that of a `normal oplax' monoidal product, to be able to define monoids (which are then operads on the underlying category) and make a bar construction. The main benefit of this work is in the dual setting, where it allows us to define a cobar construction for cooperads.

We study the structure possessed by the Goodwillie derivatives of a pointed homotopy f'unctor of based topological spaces. These derivatives naturally form a bimodule over the operad consisting of the derivatives of the identity functor. We then use these bimodule structures to give a chain rule for higher derivatives in the calculus of functors, extending that of Klein and Rognes. This chain rule expresses the derivatives of FG as a derived composition product of the derivatives of F and G over the derivatives of the identity.There are two main ingredients in our proofs. Firstly, we construct new models for the Goodwillie derivatives of functors of spectra. These models allow for natural composition maps that yield operad and module structures. Then, we use a cosimplicial cobar construction to transfer this structure to functors of topological spaces. A form of Koszul duality for operads of spectra plays a key role in this.

We prove a chain rule for the Goodwillie calculus of functors from spectra to spectra. We show that the (higher) derivatives of a composite functor FG at a base object X are given by taking the composition product (in the sense of symmetric sequences) of the derivatives of F at G(X) with the derivatives of G at X. We also consider the question of finding P(n)(FG), and give an explicit formula for this when F is homogeneous.

This is a summary of a talk given at the Conference on Pure and Applied Topology on the Isle of Skye from June 21-25, 2005. The author would like to thank the organisers of the conference for a fantastic week and for the opportunity to present the following work. We describe a relationship between Goodwillie’s calculus of homotopy functors and configuration spaces. In [3], we showed that the Goodwillie derivatives of the identity functor on based spaces form an operad of spectra. Here we show that the configuration spaces of points in a parallelizable manifold form, up to suspension and homotopy, a right module over this operad (see Proposition 3.1). We then describe how this construction might be related to work of Markl, in which he shows that these configuration spaces form a right module over the Fulton-MacPherson operads Fm constructed from the compactified configuration spaces of points in R. We refer the reader to Goodwillie [5] for background on the calculus of homotopy functors, and to Kathryn Hess’s talk at this same conference for background on operads and modules over them. In §1 below, we summarize the construction of an operad structure on the derivatives of the identity functor. In §2, we construct from a fixed based space X, a right module CX over that operad. In §3, we use Atiyah duality to relate this module to configuration spaces for parallelizable manifolds. Finally, in §4, we recall the work of Markl, and conjecture a connection between his constructions and ours. Much of this work is still in progress, and we warn the reader that not all the details have been fully worked out.