Lambda-ring

Summary

A lambda-ring is a commutative ring with extra operations $\lambda^n$ that behave like exterior powers of vector spaces. Grothendieck introduced them to organise the structure of the K-group of vector bundles, where $\lambda^n[E] = [\Lambda^n E]$. Lambda-rings carry the Adams operations and the gamma filtration. They appear in K-theory, in representation theory and in the theory of symmetric functions.