Growth of homotopy groups of spheres via the Goodwillie-EHP Sequence

Abstract

We bound the volume of the homotopy groups of the 2-local Goodwillie approximations of a sphere in terms of the amount of $2$-torsion in the stable stems, providing a Goodwillie-theoretic refinement of a result of Burklund and Senger (arXiv:2203.00670). At the $2^k$-excisive approximation, this bound is obtained by `multiplying the stable answer by a polynomial of degree $k$'. The main tool is Behrens' Goodwillie-EHP Long Exact Sequence.

arXiv commentSubstantial revision after the release of Burklund and Senger's preprint, which changed the landscape dramatically. 11 pages, comments welcome!