A combinatorial method for computing Steenrod squares

Abstract

We present here a combinatorial method for computing Steenrod squares of a simplicial set X. This method is essentially based on the determination of explicit formulae for the component morphisms of a higher diagonal approximation (i.e., a family of morphisms measuring the lack of commutativity of the cup product on the cochain level) in terms of face operators of X. A generalization of this method to Steenrod reduced powers is sketched