Unimodular lattices of rank 29 and related even genera of small determinant

We classify the unimodular Euclidean integral lattices of rank 29 by developing an elementary, yet very efficient, inductive method. As an application, we determine the isometry classes of even lattices of rank at most 28 and prime (half-)determinant at most 7. We also provide new isometry invariants allowing for independent verification of the completeness of our lists, and we give conceptual explanations of some unique orbit phenomena discovered during our computations. Some of the genera classified here are orders of magnitude larger than any genus previously classified. In a forthcoming companion paper, we use these computations to study the cohomology of GL_n(Z).