Special correspondences and Chow traces of Landweber-Novikov operations

We prove that the function field of a variety which possesses a special correspondence in the sense of M. Rost preserves the rationality of cycles of small codimensions. This fact was proven by Vishik in the case of quadrics and played the crucial role in his construction of fields with $u$-invariant $2^r+1$. The main technical tools are algebraic cobordism of Levine-Morel, generalized Rost degree formula and divisibility of Chow traces of certain Landweber-Novikov operations. As a direct application of our methods we prove the Vishik's Theorem for all $F_4$-varieties.Comment: 13 page

Towards generalized cohomology Schubert calculus via formal root polynomials

An important combinatorial result in equivariant cohomology and $K$-theory Schubert calculus is represented by the formulas of Billey and Graham-Willems for the localization of Schubert classes at torus fixed points. These formulas work uniformly in all Lie types, and are based on the concept of a root polynomial. In this paper we define formal root polynomials associated with an arbitrary formal group law (and thus a generalized cohomology theory). We focus on the case of the hyperbolic formal group law (corresponding to elliptic cohomology). We study some of the properties of formal root polynomials. We give applications to the efficient computation of the transition matrix between two natural bases of the formal Demazure algebra in the hyperbolic case. As a corollary, we rederive in a transparent and uniform manner the formulas of Billey and Graham-Willems. We also prove the corresponding formula in connective $K$-theory, which seems new, and a duality result in this case. Other applications, including some related to the computation of Bott-Samelson classes in elliptic cohomology, are also discussed.Comment: 20pp, several minor typos and mistakes were corrected; references updated; the analogue of the Billey-Graham-Willems formula and the respective duality result for connective K-theory was adde

The gamma-filtration and the Rost invariant

Let X be the variety of Borel subgroups of a simple and strongly inner linear algebraic group G over a field k. We prove that the torsion part of the second quotient of Grothendieck's gamma-filtration on X is a cyclic group of order the Dynkin index of G. As a byproduct of the proof we obtain an explicit cycle that generates this cyclic group; we provide an upper bound for the torsion of the Chow group of codimension-3 cycles on X; we relate the generating cycle with the Rost invariant and the torsion of the respective generalized Rost motives; we use this cycle to obtain a uniform lower bound for the essential dimension of (almost) all simple linear algebraic groups.Comment: 19 pages; this is an essentially extended version of the previous preprint. Applications to cohomological invariants and essential dimensions of linear algebraic groups are provide

J-invariant of linear algebraic groups

Let G be a linear algebraic group over a field F and X be a projective homogeneous G-variety such that G splits over the function field of X. In the present paper we introduce an invariant of G called J-invariant which characterizes the motivic behaviour of X. This generalizes the respective notion invented by A. Vishik in the context of quadratic forms. As a main application we obtain a uniform proof of all known motivic decompositions of generically split projective homogeneous varieties (Severi-Brauer varieties, Pfister quadrics, maximal orthogonal Grassmannians, G2- and F4-varieties) as well as provide new examples (exceptional varieties of types E6, E7 and E8). We also discuss relations with torsion indices, canonical dimensions and cohomological invariants of the group G.Comment: The paper containes 39 pages and uses XYPIC packag

Invariants of degree 3 and torsion in the Chow group of a versal flag

We prove that the group of normalized cohomological invariants of degree 3 modulo the subgroup of semidecomposable invariants of a semisimple split linear algebraic group G is isomorphic to the torsion part of the Chow group of codimension 2 cycles of the respective versal G-flag. In particular, if G is simple, we show that this factor group is isomorphic to the group of indecomposable invariants of G. As an application, we construct nontrivial cohomological classes for indecomposable central simple algebras.Comment: Appendix with computations for the PGO8-case is adde