(1) Fakultät für Mathematik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany;(2) IMECC, UNICAMP, C.P. 6065 , 13083-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
Abstract:
We describe explicit presentations of all stable and the first nonstablehomotopy groups of the unitary groups. In particular, for each n 2we supply n homotopic maps that each represent the (n - 1)!-thpower of a suitable generator of 2n SU(n) n!.The product of these n commuting maps is the constant map to the identity matrix.