Abstract
This paper first appeared in a collection of lecture notes which were distributed at the A.M.S. Summer Institute on Differential Geometry, held at Stanford in 1973. Since then it has been (and remains) the authors' intention to make available a more detailed version. But, in the mean time, we continued to receive requests for the original notes. Moreover, the secondary invariants we discussed have recently arisen in some new contexts, e.g. in physics and in the work of Cheeger and Gromov on "collapse" (which was the subject of the first author's lectures at the Special Year). For these reasons we decided to finally publish the notes, albeit in their original form.
Partially supported by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and N.S.F. Grant GP 31359X-1.
Partially supported by N.S.F. Grant PO 29743002.
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© 1985 Springer-Verlag
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Cheeger, J., Simons, J. (1985). Differential characters and geometric invariants. In: Geometry and Topology. Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol 1167. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0075216
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0075216
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