Steenrod operations in Chow theory

Abstract

An action of the Steenrod algebra is constructed on the mod <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="p"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">p</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> Chow theory of varieties over a field of characteristic different from <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="p"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">p</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>, answering a question posed in Fulton’s <italic>Intersection Theory</italic>. The action agrees with the action of the Steenrod algebra used by Voevodsky in his proof of the Milnor conjecture. However, the construction uses only basic functorial properties of equivariant intersection theory.