Relative regular sequences and generalized cohomology of infinite real Grassmannians (Q6049947)

In this paper the authors give a generalized notion of \textit{a regular sequence}. Need for such a definition is illustrated with the example of the complex cobordism cohomology of real Grassmannians which is given by \[ MU^\ast BO(n)= MU_\ast[[c_1, \ldots, c_n]]/(c_1- \tilde{c}_1, \ldots, c_n- \tilde{c}_n) \] where \(c_k\) are the Conner-Floyd Chern classes of the complexification of the universal real bundle \(\gamma_k\) on \(BO(k)\) and \(\tilde{c}_k\) are their complex conjugates but the elements \(c_i- \tilde{c}_i\) do not form a regular sequence. In order to get more information about the cohomology ring, it is required to get some information about the elements involved. This motivates the following definition. Definition. Let \(R\) be a commutative ring. A \textit{relative regular sequence} consists of elements \(a_i, b_i, c_i\) where \[ b_ic_i \equiv a_i \pmod{a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_{i-1}}, \] \(i= 1, 2, \ldots, n\) which satisfy the condition \[ \mathrm{Ann}_{R/(a_1, \ldots, a_{i-1})}(b_i)= \mathrm{Ann}_{R/(a_1, \ldots, a_{i-1})}(a_i)= b_{i-1} \] for \(i= 1, \ldots, n.\) (For the sake of the case \(i=1,\) we put \(a_0= b_0= 0, ~c_0= 1.\)) The authors further define an \textit{admissible sequence} and \textit{strongly relative regular} sequences which are relative regular sequences with added conditions. One of the interesting and useful results of the paper is as follows. Theorem. Let \(a_i, b_i, c_i\) be a relative regular sequence, \(i= 1, \ldots, n\) in a ring \(R.\) Then the \(R\)-modules \(\overline{A}_n= R/(a_1, \ldots, a_n), ~\overline{A}_n/(b_n)\) have free \(R\)-resolutions of the form \[ R \longrightarrow \cdots \longrightarrow \underset{\binom{n}{k}}{\bigoplus}R \longrightarrow \cdots \longrightarrow R. \] The paper is well written. The notion of relative regular sequences is useful and many theorems that use regular sequences could have generalized versions.