Subalgebras of group cohomology defined by infinite loop spaces

We study natural subalgebras Ch_E(G) of group cohomology defined in terms of infinite loop spaces E and give representation theoretic descriptions of those based on QS^0 and the Johnson-Wilson theories E(n). We describe the subalgebras arising from the Brown-Peterson spectra BP and as a result give a simple reproof of Yagita's theorem that the image of BP^*(BG) in H^*(BG;F_p) is F-isomorphic to the whole cohomology ring; the same result is shown to hold with BP replaced by any complex oriented theory E with a map of ring spectra from E to HF_p which is non-trivial in homotopy. We also extend the constructions to define subalgebras of H^*(X;F_p) for any space X; when X is finite we show that the subalgebras Ch_{E(n)}(X) give a natural unstable chromatic filtration of H^*(X;F_p).