The integral cohomology rings of some <i>p</i>-groups (Q3977013)

Let \(P(n)\), \(n\geq 2\), be the group given by the presentation \[ P(n)=\langle a,b,c\mid a^ p=b^ p=c^{p^{n-2}}=[a,c]=[b,c]=1,\;[a,b]=c^{p^{n-3}}\rangle. \] Clearly, \(P(n)\) is an extension of \(C_ p\times C_ p\) by the central subgroup \(C=C_{p^{n-2}}\). In this paper the author computes the integral cohomology of \(P(n)\), identifies the Chern classes and describes the action of the automorphism group of \(P(n)\) on the cohomology ring. The calculation is in two steps. First, \(P=P(n)\) is embedded into a compact Lie group \(\tilde P\) of dimension one by embedding the central cyclic subgroup \(C_{p^{n-2}}\) into \(S^ 1\). The Lyndon-Hochschild-Serre spectral sequence then yields the cohomology of \(\tilde P\). In a second step the Serre spectral sequence associated with the fibration \(S^ 1/C\cong {\tilde P}/P\to BP\to B{\tilde P}\) is used to compute the cohomology of \(BP\). Both of these steps involve intricate calculations.