Oriented cohomology and invariants of homogeneous spaces

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The theory of linear algebraic groups is a well established area of modern mathematics. It started as an algebraic version of the massively successful and widely applied theory of Lie groups, pushed forward most notably by Chevalley and Borel. In the hands of Serre, Springer, Tits and many others, it developed into an important tool for understanding geometry (of homogeneous spaces and toric varieties), number theory (in the form of Galois cohomology) and representation theory (of groups and the associated algebras). In the last decades the theory of linear algebraic groups has witnessed a massive intrusion of the methods of algebraic topology. These new methods have led to breakthroughs on a number of classical problems in algebra, which are beyond the reach of earlier purely algebraic techniques. In the mid of 90's Voevodsky's use of techniques from homotopy and cobordism theory in the context of quadratic forms had resulted in the solution of the Milnor conjecture. Another striking example of this ongoing trend is the invention of an algebraic classifying space and equivariant cohomology by Eddidin-Graham and Totaro. Merging these results with a notion of an algebraic oriented cohomology introduced by Levine-Morel and Panin-Smirnov in 00's have lead to the creation of a family of new algebraic equivariant cohomology theories (e.g. equivariant cobordism and elliptic cohomology) which are actively studied nowadays in view of its rich connections to geometry. The proposed project can be viewed as the next step toward this philosophy. Roughly speaking, it consists of two directions: first, is an 'algebraization program' for equivariant oriented cohomology (over an algebraically closed field); second, deals with its applications to the theory of torsors and twisted flag varieties (over an arbitrary field). Its goal is to match various cohomology rings of flag varieties and elements of classical interest in them (such as classes of Schubert varieties) with some algebraic and combinatorial objects. An essential part of the proposed investigations is the involvement of graduate and postdoctoral students. Some of the subtasks, for instance those related with computations in oriented cohomology, are expected to become the subjects of the proposed MSc and PhD-projects. As an outcome we expect to obtain new results in the theory of algebraic groups and geometry of homogeneous spaces that will extend our knowledge in those areas of mathematics and will help advance Canada's fundamental science capabilities.