Multiplicative 2-cocycles at the prime 2

Adam Hughes, JohnMark Lau, Eric Peterson

Published 2009-11-14, updated 2011-05-25Version 2

Using a previous classification result on symmetric additive 2-cocycles, we collect a variety of facts about the Lubin-Tate cohomology of formal groups to compute the 2-primary component of the scheme of symmetric multiplicative 2-cocycles. This scheme classifies certain kinds of highly symmetric multiextensions, as studied in general by Mumford or Breen. A low-order version of this computation has previously found application in homotopy theory through the sigma-orientation of Ando, Hopkins, and Strickland, and the complete computation is reflective of certain structure found in the homotopy type of connective K-theory. This paper has been completely rewritten from its first posted draft, including a correction of the statement of the main result.