Filtrations of global equivariant K-theory

Arone and Lesh (J Reine Angew Math 604:73–136, 2007; Fund Math 207(1):29–70, 2010) constructed and studied spectrum level filtrations that interpolate between connective (topological or algebraic) K-theory and the Eilenberg–MacLane spectrum for the integers. In this paper we consider (global) equivariant generalizations of these filtrations and another closely related class of filtrations, the modified rank filtrations of the K-theory spectra themselves. We lift Arone and Lesh’s description of the filtration subquotients to the equivariant context and apply it to compute algebraic filtrations on representation rings that arise on equivariant homotopy groups. It turns out that these representation ring filtrations are considerably easier to express in a global equivariant context than over a fixed compact Lie group. Furthermore, they have formal similarities to the filtration on Burnside rings induced by the symmetric products of spheres, which was computed by Schwede (J Am Math Soc 30(3):673–711, 2017).