If
is a reduced operad in a symmetric monoidal category of spectra
(–modules),
an
–algebra
can
be viewed as analogous to the augmentation ideal of an augmented algebra. From the
literature on topological André–Quillen homology, one can see that such an
admits a canonical (and homotopically meaningful) decreasing
–algebra
filtration
satisfying various nice properties analogous to powers of an ideal in a ring.
We more fully develop such constructions in a manner
allowing for more flexibility and revealing new structure. With
a commutative
–algebra, an
–bimodule
defines an endofunctor of the category of
–algebras in
–modules by sending
such an
–algebra
to
. We
explore the use of the bar construction as a derived version of this. Letting
run through a
decreasing
–bimodule
filtration of
itself then yields the augmentation ideal filtration as above. The
composition structure of the operad then induces pairings among
these bimodules, which in turn induce natural transformations
,
fitting nicely with previously studied structure.
As a formal consequence, an
–algebra map
induces
compatible maps
for all
.
This is an essential tool in the first author’s study of Hurewicz maps for infinite loop
spaces, and its utility is illustrated here with a lifting theorem.