On Chern classes of finite group representations (Q915869)

\textit{M. F. Atiyah} [Inst. Hautes Etud. Sci., Publ. Math. 9, 247-288 (1961; Zbl 0107.023)], observed that for a finite group G and a complex representation \(\rho\) : \(G\to Gl_ n({\mathbb{C}})\) of dimension n, it is possible to attach to \(\rho\) natural cohomology classes with integral coefficients \(c_ i(\rho)\in H^{2i}(G,{\mathbb{Z}})\), \(i=0,1,...,n\), namely the Chern classes of a vector bundle constructed from \(\rho\) over the classifying space BG of G. The aim of this paper is to provide a purely algebraic definition of the Chern classes.