Bigraded cohomology of \(\mathbb{Z}/2\)-equivariant Grassmannians (Q2260552)

The subject of this paper are the infinite Grassmannians \(Gr_k(\mathcal U)\) regarded as spaces with a \(\mathbb Z_2\) action, where \[ \mathcal U={\mathbb R}\oplus{\mathbb R}_-\oplus{\mathbb R}\oplus{\mathbb R}_-\oplus\dots \] and \(\mathbb R\) and \(\mathbb R_-\) denote the two representations of \(\mathbb Z_2\) on the real line: the first one has the trivial action, the second one has the sign action. Here the auhor computes the \(RO(\mathbb Z_2)\) graded cohomology rings \(H^*(Gr_k(\mathcal U);(\mathbb Z_2)_m)\) where \((\mathbb Z_2)_m\) denotes the constant-coefficient Mackey functor. These cohomology rings are a notion of equivariant cohomology that is finer than the classical Borel theory. Of course these results can be interpreted as giving a calculation of all characteristic classes, with values in the theory \(H^*(-;(\mathbb Z_2)_m)\) for rank-\(k\) equivariant bundles. The present paper provides the first complete computation for any single value of \(k \geq1\).