Higher cohomological operations on Thom classes (Q1069173)

The authors consider the evaluation of high order operations on the Thom classes of vector bundles. It is shown that basically none of the standard secondary cohomology operations or the elements of the family \(Q_ n^{(s)}\) of high order operations which are the k-invariants of Morava's k-theory vanish universally on Thom classes. Specifically the following theorem is proved: Theorem: (a) Let r(a,b) be the secondary operation associated with the Adem relation \(Sq^ a Sq^ b=..\). then there exists a vector bundle with a Thom class U with r(a,b)(U) not containing 0. (b) Let \(Q_ n^{(s)}\) be the operations described above. For every n and t there exists a vector bundle whose Thom class satisfies: \(Q_ n^{(s)}(U)\) contains 0 for \(s<t\) and does not contain 0 for \(s=t\).