A chain rule for Goodwillie derivatives of functors from spectra to spectra

Abstract

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.