Frank Williams | Searcharxiv

arXiv2009

The odd-primary Kudo-Araki-May algebra of algebraic Steenrod operations and invariant theory

We describe bialgebras of lower-indexed algebraic Steenrod operations over the field with p elements, p an odd prime. These go beyond the operations that can act nontrivially in topology, and their duals are closely related to algebras of polynomial invariants under subgroups of the general linear groups that contain the unipotent upper triangular groups. There are significant differences between these algebras and the analogous one for p=2, in particular in the nature and consequences of the defining Adem relations.

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arXiv2003

Global structure of the mod two symmetric algebra, H^*(BO;F_2), over the Steenrod Algebra

The algebra S of symmetric invariants over the field with two elements is an unstable algebra over the Steenrod algebra A, and is isomorphic to the mod two cohomology of BO, the classifying space for vector bundles. We provide a minimal presentation for S in the category of unstable A-algebras, i.e., minimal generators and minimal relations. From this we produce minimal presentations for various unstable A-algebras associated with the cohomology of related spaces, such as the BO(2^m-1) that classify finite dimensional vector bundles, and the connected covers of BO. The presentations then show that certain of these unstable A-algebras coalesce to produce the Dickson algebras of general linear group invariants, and we speculate about possible related topological realizability. Our methods also produce a related simple minimal A-module presentation of the cohomology of infinite dimensional real projective space, with filtered quotients the unstable modules F(2^p-1)/A bar{A}_{p-2}, as described in an independent appendix.

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