For a fixed abelian group let denote the set of Eilenberg–MacLane spaces
with the adjunction map coming from the property of loop spaces of Eilenberg–Maclane spaces: namely, because there is a homotopy equivalence
we can construct maps from the adjunction giving the desired structure maps of the set to get a spectrum. This collection is called the Eilenberg–Maclane spectrum of [1]pg 134.
Using the Eilenberg–Maclane spectrum we can define the notion of cohomology of a spectrum and the homology of a spectrum [2]pg 42. Using the functor
we can define cohomology simply as
Note that for a CW complex , the cohomology of the suspension spectrum recovers the cohomology of the original space . Note that we can define the dual notion of homology as
which can be interpreted as a "dual" to the usual hom-tensor adjunction in spectra. Note that instead of , we take for some Abelian group , we recover the usual (co)homology with coefficients in the abelian group and denote it by .
Mod-p spectra and the Steenrod algebra
For the Eilenberg–Maclane spectrum there is an isomorphism
for the p-Steenrod algebra .