We determine the extent to which the collection of Γ-Euler–Satake characteristics classify closed 2-orbifolds. In particular, we show that the closed, connected, effective, orientable 2-orbifolds are classified by the Γ-Euler–Satake characteristics corresponding to free or free abelian Γ and are not classified by those corresponding to any finite set of finitely generated discrete groups. These results demonstrate that the Γ-Euler–Satake characteristics corresponding to free abelian Γ constitute new invariants of orbifolds. Similarly, we show that such a classification is neither possible for non-orientable 2-orbifolds nor for non-effective 2-orbifolds using any collection of groups Γ.

This paper gives non-embeddings and non-immersions for the real flag manifolds RF(1, 1, n–2), n > 3 and shows that Lam's immersions for n = 4 and 5 and Stong's result for n = 6 are the best possible.

Let ξbe an SO(n)-bundle over a simple connected manifold M with a spin structure Q → M. The string class is an obstruction to h1 the structure group LSpin(n) of the loop group bundle LQ → LM to the universal central extension of LSpain(n) by the circle. We prove that the string class vanishes if and only if 1/2 the first Pontrjagin clsss of values when M is a compact simply connected homogeneous space of rank one, a simpiy connected 4 dimensional manifold or a finite product space of those manifolds. This result is deduced by using the Eclesberg spectral sequence converging to the mod p cohomology of LM whose E2-term to the Hochschild homology of the mod p cohomology algebra of M. The key to the consideration is existence of a morphism of algebras, which is injective below degree 3, from an important graded commutator algebra into the Hochschild homology of a certain graded commutative algebra.

The ordinary string class is an obstruction to lift the structure group LSpin(n) of a loop group bundle LQ → LM to the universal central extension of LSpin(n) by the circle. The vanishing problem of the ordinary string class and generalized string classes are considered from the viewpoint of the ring structure of the cohomology H*(M; R).