The Viterbo Transfer as a Map of Spectra and Twisted Chas-Sullivan Products
by Thomas Kragh
PhD Dissertations
September 2007
Let L and N be two smooth manifolds of the same dimension. Let j:L→T∗N be an exact Lagrange embedding. We denote the free loop space of X by ΛX. Claude Viterbo constructed a transfer map (Λj)!:H∗(ΛL)→H∗(ΛN). We prove that this transfer map can be realized as a map of Thom spectra (Λj)!:(ΛN)−TN→(ΛL)−TL+η, where η is a virtual bundle defined by the embedding. John D.S. Jones and Ralph L. Cohen proved that the celebrated Chas-Sullivan product for a manifold N can be realized as a product on the Thom spectrum (ΛN)−TN, turning it into a ring spectrum. We prove a generalized, "twisted" version of this, proving that the target of (Λj)! is a Chas-Sullivan type ring spectrum. This leads to the natural conjecture that the Viterbo transfer is a ring spectrum homomorphism. We describe partial results on this conjecture.
Thesis advisor: Marcel Bökstedt