Goodwillie calculus and algebras over a spectral operad

Abstract

The overall goal of this thesis is to apply the theory of Goodwillie calculus to the category Algo of algebras over a spectral operad. Its first part generalizes many of the original results of Goodwillie in [14] so that they apply to a larger class of model categories and hence be applicable to Algo. The second part then applies that generalized theory to the Algo categories. The main results here are: an understanding of finitary homogeneous between such categories; identifying the Taylor tower of the identity in those categories; showing that finitary n-excisive functors can not distinguish between Algo and Algo,, the category of algebras over the truncated operad O<; and a weak form of the chain rule between the algebra categories, analogous to the one found in [1].