Use the standard complex K-theory Thom class convention. For a rank- complex vector bundle, its K-theory Euler class is the pullback of the K-theory Thom class along the zero section, namely
Here denotes an exterior power, and a Hermitian metric identifies the dual bundle with the conjugate vector bundle. Choosing instead changes the K-theory Euler class by the unit , so its kernel and cokernel computations are unchanged.
For the disk bundle and sphere bundle , the K-theory Thom class identifies with . The exact sequence of this pair becomes the K-theory Gysin sequence of a sphere bundle:
The groups are two-periodic by Bott periodicity.
View Real projective space as the circle bundle of over Complex projective space, where is the tautological bundle. Indeed, maps to by ; in each fiber squaring identifies exactly and .
Use Complex K-theory of complex projective space in the form
The K-theory Euler class of is . Multiplying it by the unit gives . The K-theory Gysin sequence of a sphere bundle therefore gives
Under the projection , the pullback vector bundle is the complexification of a real vector bundle of the tautological bundle of Real projective space: the fiber map sends to . Thus pulls back to . Put . The relation gives , and gives . Hence
For completeness, these relations give precisely the abelian group . In the basis , the image of multiplication by is generated by ; its relation matrix is triangular with determinant , and the relations express every as . Thus there is exactly one cyclic torsion subgroup of order .
If and is in the kernel, successive coefficients of give , , and so on, up to . Hence , with arbitrary. For the multiplier is zero on . In all cases,
Finally let with , over . Since , multiplicativity of the K-theory Euler class gives
On , the image of multiplication by this K-theory Euler class is the subgroup generated by : multiplication by an integer produces every such multiple, while multiplication by only adds multiples of . Therefore
Multiplication by is zero on , since and this abelian group has no nonzero torsion elements. Thus the K-theory Gysin sequence of a sphere bundle gives a short exact sequence
It splits as an exact sequence of abelian groups because its quotient is a free abelian group. Consequently
The convention covers and . For example, when the sphere bundle is , a mapping torus of the antipodal map; its Topological K-theory has no nonzero torsion elements, agreeing with the formula. If is allowed, the rank-zero vector bundle has an empty unit sphere bundle, so instead.
For a complex vector bundle , the K-theory Euler class is the zero-section pullback of its K-theory Thom class:
The cofibration of the disk and sphere bundles gives the K-theory Gysin sequence of a sphere bundle
Let be the tautological bundle. The Euler sequence on complex projective space gives the bundle isomorphism
Put , so . From
and evaluation at , or polynomial division followed by differentiation at the removable root, we obtain
Because , the Gysin sequence identifies even K-theory with the cokernel and odd K-theory with the kernel of multiplication by . Therefore
and, since multiplication only detects the constant coefficient,
The cofibration
gives the long exact sequence of a pair in Topological K-theory. Identify with by deformation retraction and use multiplication by the K-theory Thom class
to identify the relative term with . Pullback along the zero section sends to the K-theory Euler class
The map from the relative term to is therefore multiplication by , giving the K-theory Gysin sequence of a sphere bundle
For
over , put . The Complex K-theory of complex projective space is
and
The Gysin sequence consequently identifies
for . This is the Odd K-theory of the sphere bundle of two tautological lines.
If , then the base is a point and , so by Bott periodicity.
The cannibalistic class is defined by the identity
for the Adams operation . The Thom class of a direct sum is the product of the pulled-back Thom classes. Applying the ring homomorphism gives
If is a line bundle, restriction along the zero section gives
so
Let be the boundary map. By definition of ,
The natural operation commutes with , and therefore
Cancelling the Thom class proves the Adams operation and the boundary pushforward of a sphere bundle formula
Choose the basis of characterized by
For ,
Modulo , this gives
Since identifies with this kernel, the Second Adams operation on the odd K-theory of the sphere bundle of two tautological lines is
For , the single generator of is multiplied by .