A classification of additive symmetric 2-cocycles (Q610634)

Symmetric \(2\)-cocyles were considered by \textit{M. Lazard} [``Sur les groupes de Lie formels à un paramètre'', Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 83, 251--274 (1955; Zbl 0068.25703)] in his classification of formal group laws. These are polynomials \(f(x,y)\) of two variables over the integers so that \[ f(x+y,z) + f(x,y) = f(x,y+z) + f(y,z). \] Lazard demonstrated that any such was a linear combination of \[ f_n(x,y) = d^{-1}((x+y)^n - x^n - y^n) \] where \(d\) is the greatest common divisor the binomial coefficients \({n}\choose{i}\), \(0 < i < n\). Generalizations of this to polynomials in \(k\) variables appeared in \textit{M. Ando, M. J. Hopkins} and \textit{N. P. Strickland} [``Elliptic spectra, the Witten genus and the theorem of the cube'', Invent. Math. 146, No.~3, 595--687 (2001; Zbl 1031.55005)], who gave an entirely analogous calculation over the rationals. The authors of this paper complete the calculation over the prime fields \({\mathbb{F}}_p\), and the Frobenius makes an appearance. The unique feature of this paper is, as the authors write, ``we construct the classification for all \(k\) in concert; in fact, the classification of the \(k\)-variate case often depends upon the classification of the \(r\)-variate case with \(r > k\).''