beta-family congruences and the f-invariant

Abstract

In previous work, the authors have each introduced methods for studying the 2-line of the p-local Adams-Novikov spectral sequence in terms of the arithmetic of modular forms. We give the precise relationship between the congruences of modular forms introduced by the first author with the Q-spectrum and the f-invariant of the second author. This relationship enables us to refine the target group of the f-invariant in a way which makes it more manageable for computations.