Bott cannibalistic class

In mathematics, the Bott cannibalistic class, introduced by Raoul Bott (1962), is an element ${\displaystyle \theta _{k}(V)}$ of the representation ring of a compact Lie group that describes the action of the Adams operation ${\displaystyle \psi ^{k}}$ on the Thom class ${\displaystyle \lambda _{V}}$ of a complex representation ${\displaystyle V}$. The term "cannibalistic" for these classes was introduced by Frank Adams.^[1]

• Bott, Raoul (1962), "A note on the KO-theory of sphere-bundles", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 68 (4): 395–400, doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1962-10819-2, ISSN 0002-9904, MR 0153019