A note on the Thom morphism for the classifying space of certain Lie groups and gauge groups

Abstract

We give a complete description of which non-torsion generators are not in the image of the Thom morphism from complex cobordism to integral cohomology for the classifying space of exceptional Lie groups except for E_8. We then show that the Thom morphism is not surjective for the classifying space of the gauge group of a principal E_7-bundle over the four-dimensional sphere. We use the results to detect nontrivial elements in the kernel of the reduced Thom morphism for Lie groups and their classifying spaces.