Higher Chern classes in Iwasawa theory

Abstract: We begin a study of m-th Chern classes and m-th characteristic symbols for Iwasawa modules which are supported in codimension at least m. This extends the classical theory of characteristic ideals and their generators for Iwasawa modules which are torsion, i.e., supported in codimension at least 1. We apply this to an Iwasawa module constructed from an inverse limit of p-parts of ideal class groups of abelian extensions of an imaginary quadratic field. When this module is pseudo-null, which is conjecturally always the case, we determine its second Chern class and show that it has a characteristic symbol given by the Steinberg symbol of two Katz p-adic L-functions.