On a generalization of Cheeger-Chern-Simons classes (Q757906)

For foliated bundles there are well known second order characteristic classes with \({\mathbb{R}}\) coefficients as well as Cheeger-Chern-Simons classes with \({\mathbb{R}}/L\) coefficients where L is a subring of \({\mathbb{R}}\). The authors unify the ideas involved in the construction of these classes to define a generalized Cheeger-Chern-Simons class. This is done in such a way that a real second order class arises naturally from \(L=0\).