In this talk, we introduce a spectral sequence converging to the singular homology of $\mathit{Emb}(S^1,M)$, the space of smooth embeddings from the circle to a closed simply connected smooth manifold $M$ of dimension $\geq 4$. Such a spectral sequence was constructed by Vassiliev. The relationship between Vassiliev's spectral sequence and ours is still unclear but if they are isomorphic at $E^2$-page, our spectral sequence could give a conprehensive description for Vassiliev's one and enable us to study it in terms of algebraic topology.
Let $STM^n$ denote $n$-times direct product of the total space of the sphere tangent bundle of $M$, and $STM^n|_X$ the total space of the restriction of the base to a subspace $X\subset M^n$. Let $F_nM\subset M^n$ denote the configuration space of $n$-ordered points in $M$, and $D_nM\subset M^n$ the fat diagonal of $M^n$. Let $\mathcal{M}_M$ denote the right $A_\infty$ module of configuration spaces of points with a tangent vector in $M$, and $\R Map(-,-)$ the derived mapping space between two right modules.
The right module $\mathcal{M}_M$ and the space $\mathit{Emb}(S^1,M)$ is related by a weak homotopy equivalence $\mathit{Emb}(S^1,M)\simeq \R Map (\mathcal{M}_{S^1}, \mathcal{M}_M)$ due to Boavida-Weiss and Turchin. For $\mathcal{M}_M$, we prove the following claim, an enriched version of the Poincar\'e-Lefschetz duality $H_*(STM^n|_{F_nM})\simeq H^*(STM^n, STM^n|_{D_nM})$:
Theorem 1. Let $M$ be a closed orientable smooth manifold. In the category of symmetric spectra, the dual comodule of $\mathcal{M}_M$ is weakly equivalent to a comodule $C_M$ consisting of certain Thom spectra associated to a vector bundle over $STM^n/(STM^n|_{D_nM})$.
The comodule $C_M$ in Theorem 1 has a $\check{\text{C}}$ech-type resolution, and it induces the desired spectral sequence:
Theorem 2. Let $R$ be a commutative ring and $M$ a closed simply connected smooth manifold of dimension $\geq 4$. There exists a spectral sequence converging to $H_*(\mathit{Emb}(S^1,M);R)$ whose $E^2$-page is described by the homology groups of a fiber product $STM^n\times_{M^n}M^k$ for various $n,k$ with $n>k$ and the diagonal maps and the shriek maps between them.
Though our main concern is the ordinary homology, the use of symmetric spectra is technically inevitable. Our construction is similar to that of the Cohen-Jones isomorphism in string topology, and we need to deal with higher homotopy concerning shriek maps. Symmetric spectra is suitable to this kind of problem.