The total Stiefel-Whitney class of a regular representation (Q1178888)

This paper is a sequel to [J. Algebra 126, 327-347 (1989; Zbl 0687.55008)] by \textit{J. Gunarwardena}, \textit{B. Kahn} and \textit{C. B. Thomas}, containing proofs of several results mentioned there. Define a filtration, \(J^{(n)}(X)\leq KO(X)\), by \[ J^{(x)}(X)=\{x\in KO(X)\mid\dim(X)\equiv 0(2^ n),\;w_ i(\lambda)=0 \text{ for } 0<i<2^{n-1}\}. \] When \(G\) is a finite group with the regular representation, \(r_ G\), then \(\nu(G)\) is the filtration of \( r_ G(KO(BG))\). If \(r(G)\) is the 2-rank of \(G\) and \(\ell(G)\) is its 2-length it is shown that \(r(G)\leq\nu(G)\leq\ell(G)\). The author conjectures that \(\{J^{(*)}(BG)\}\) is a multiplicative filtration and proves this conjecture in many cases. Bounds on \(\nu(G)\) are obtained as a consequence of this multiplicativity.