Minc's generating function and a ``Segal conjecture'' for certain Thom spectra (Q2637918)

This paper constructs minimal injective resolutions, in the category of unstable modules over the mod \(2\) Steenrod algebra, for the cohomology of certain spectra obtained from the Thom space of the fibration associated to the reduced regular representation of the elementary abelian group \(({\mathbb Z}/2)^n\) over the space \(B({\mathbb Z}/2)^n\). The terms in the resolution are tensor products of Brown-Gitler modules \(J(k)\) and the Steinberg modules \(L_n\) introduced by Mitchell and Priddy. Lannes and Zarati showed that these modules are injective, and they are indecomposable. The existence of this resolution had been conjectured by Lannes and the second author. The principal evidence for this conjecture was a combinatorial result of G. Andrews: the alternating sum of the Poincaré series of these modules is zero. The theorem has some consequences for homotopy theory, and allows one to prove, for these spectra, an analogue of the Segal conjecture for elementary abelian \(2\)-groups.