The mod 2 cohomology rings of the symmetric groups and invariants. (Q5952744)

The mod 2 cohomology rings of finite symmetric groups have seen significant study and are of particular topological interest due to their connection with the stable homotopy groups of spheres. Determining the structure of such rings is similar to determining the structure of the symmetric invariants of a tensor product of a finite number of copies of a polynomial algebra over a field of characteristic 2. The author determines a minimal set of generators and a (not necessarily minimal) set of relations for both types of rings. Underlying the construction of the generators and relations is a notion of ``width'' of a cohomology class which is determined by considering restriction to smaller symmetric groups. Also playing a key role is the fact that the cohomology of symmetric groups can be detected on elementary Abelian subgroups. While the set of relations constructed here is not minimal, the author works a number of examples and suggests algorithms for minimizing the relations. For example, a minimal generating set along with a set of minimal relations is given for the cohomology ring of the symmetric group on 16 letters which is a new result. Further, the construction presented here is well-suited for constructing specific types of relations or seeing that such do not exist. As the number of relations is in general very large, such specific information may be sufficient for certain applications.