The average distribution of cubic exponential sums.
Let be a commutative -algebra where is a ring containing the rationals. We prove the existence of a Chern character for Lie-Rinehart algebras over A with values in the Lie-Rinehart cohomology of L which is independent of choice of a -connection. Our result generalizes the classical Chern character from the -theory of to the algebraic De Rham cohomology.
The cohomology ring of a finite group, with coefficients in a finite field, can be computed by a machine, as Carlson has showed. Here “compute” means to find a presentation in terms of generators and relations, and involves only the underlying (graded) ring. We propose a method to determine some of the extra structure: namely, Stiefel-Whitney classes and Steenrod operations. The calculations are explicitly carried out for about one hundred groups (the results can be consulted on the Internet).Next,...