The Goodwillie tower of free augmented algebras over connective ring spectra
Abstract
Let R be a connective ring spectrum and let M be an R-bimodule. In this paper we prove several results that relate the K-theory of R⋉M and T[superscript M, subscript R] to a “topological Witt vectors” construction W(R; M), where R ⋉ M is the square-zero extension of R by M and T [superscript M, subscript R] is the tensor algebra on M. Our main results include a desciption of the Taylor tower of K(R ⋉ (−)) and the derived functor of K̃(TR(−)) on the category of R-bimodules in terms of the Taylor tower of W(R;−). W(R;−) has an easily described Taylor tower, given explicitly by Lindenstrauss and McCarthy in [17]. Our main results serve as generalizations of the results for discrete rings in [17, 18] and also extend the computations by Hesselholt and Madsen [15] showing that π₀(TR(R; p)) is isomorphic to the p-typical Witt vectors over R when R a commutative ring.