Universal Wu classes (Q1113142)

This paper is concerned with some technical results on representing the universal Wu classes \(v_ i\in H^ i(BO;{\mathbb{Z}}_ 2)\), where BO is the classifying space of stable real vector bundles, in terms of the universal Stiefel-Whitney classes \(w_ i\in H^ i(BO;{\mathbb{Z}}_ 2)\) modulo the ideal I of \(H^*(BO)\) generated by \(w^ 2_ i\), \(i\geq 1\). The following corollary illustrates the type of result obtained. Corollary: \(\sum_{i}v_ i\equiv 1+\sum w_{i_ 1}...w_{i_ k} mod I\), where \(\sum\) is taken over all sequences \(1\leq i_ 1<...<i_ k\) (k\(\geq 1)\) satisfying \(\{i_ 1,i_ 2,...,i_ k\}=\{\alpha_ 1,\beta_ 1,...,\alpha_ m,\beta_ m,\gamma_ 1,...,\gamma_ n\}\), \((k=2m+n\), \(m\geq 0\), \(n\geq 0)\) such that \(\alpha_ j+\beta_ j\) and \(\gamma_ j\) are all powers of 2.