Kan spectra, group spectra and twisting structures

Kan spectra provide a combinatorial model for the stable homotopy category. They were introduced by Dan Kan in 1963 under the name semisimplicial spectra. A Kan spectrum is similar to a pointed simplicial set, but it has simplices in negative degrees as well and all its simplices have infinitely many faces and degeneracies. In the first part of this thesis, we define a functor from the category of Gamma-spaces to the category of Kan spectra without passing through any other category of spectra. We show that the resulting Kan spectrum of a Gamma-space A agrees with the usual object associated to A in the stable homotopy category by comparing it to Bousfield-Friedlander's spectrum construction. In particular, applying our construction to the Gamma-space associated to a symmetric monoidal category provides a combinatorial model of its algebraic K-theory spectrum. For the Gamma-space associated to an abelian group, this yields via the stable Dold-Kan correspondence the unbounded chain complex with the abelian group concentrated in degree zero. The second part of this work concerns group spectra and twisting structures. Group spectra are the group objects in the category of Kan spectra. They provide an algebraic, combinatorial model for the stable homotopy category. We transfer Brown's model structure from the category of Kan spectra to a Quillen equivalent model structure on the category of group spectra. We then construct the analogues of Kan's loop group functor and its right adjoint Wbar together with corresponding classifying bundles, so that the category of Kan spectra becomes a twisted homotopical category in the sense of Farjoun and Hess.