Generalized Thom Spectra, Conjugate Stacks, and truncated Brown-Peterson Spectra

Abstract

We propose a of definition conjugate stack for a class of suitable $\mathbb{E}_3$-$\mathrm{MU}$-algebras that includes the truncated Brown-Peterson spectra $\mathrm{BP}\langle n \rangle$ for all heights $n$. Then we calculate part of $\mathrm{BP}\langle n \rangle^{\mathrm{conj}}$ as a quotient stack in terms of Witt vectors. To perform this computation we study generalized Thom spectra and their relative Topological Hochschild Homology. We exhibit the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum $\mathrm{H}\mathbb{F}_2$ as a $\mathbb{E}_3$-$\mathrm{MU}$-Thom spectrum, the $p$-local Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectra $\mathrm{H}\mathbb{Z}/p^n$ (except for $\mathrm{H}\mathbb{Z}/4$) and $\mathrm{H}\mathbb{Z}_{(p)}$ as $\mathbb{E}_3$-$\mathrm{MU}_{(p)}$-Thom spectra, and the connective complex K-theory spectrum $ku$ as $\mathbb{E}_1$-$\mathrm{MU}$-Thom spectra. We accompany these ``go" results with ``no-go" results that show these ``go" results do not admit $\mathbb{E}_{\infty}$-refinements.