Nilpotency of unstable \(K\)-theory (Q876529)

The author studies the nilpotency class of the homotopy set \([X,U(n)]\), where \(X\) is a finite connected \(CW\)-complex, and \(U(n)\) is the unitary group. Denoting \(N_{n,k}=\max\{nil[X,U(n)] \mid \dim X\leq 2n+k\}\), it is proved (sect. 2) that \(N_{n,k}\leq k+2\) and \(N_{n,k}\) is determined for \(k=0,1,2\) (sec. 3 and 4).