A multiplicative comparison of MacLane homology and topological Hochschild homology

Abstract: Let $Q$ denote MacLane's $Q$-construction, and $\otimes$ denote the smash product of spectra. In this paper we construct an equivalence $Q(R)\simeq \mathbb Z\otimes R$ in the category of $A_\infty$ ring spectra for any ring $R$, thus proving a conjecture made by Fiedorowicz, Schw\"anzl, Vogt and Waldhausen in "MacLane homology and topological Hochschild homology". More precisely, we construct is a symmetric monoidal structure on $Q$ (in the $\infty$-categorical sense) extending the usual monoidal structure, for which we prove an equivalence $Q(-)\simeq \mathbb Z\otimes -$ as symmetric monoidal functors, from which the conjecture follows immediately. From this result, we obtain a new proof of the equivalence $\mathrm{HML}(R,M)\simeq \mathrm{THH}(R,M)$ originally proved by Pirashvili and Waldaushen in "MacLane homology and topological Hochschild homology" (a different paper from the one cited above). This equivalence is in fact made symmetric monoidal, and so it also provides a proof of the equivalence $\mathrm{HML}(R)\simeq \mathrm{THH}(R)$ as $E_\infty$ ring spectra, when $R$ is a commutative ring.