Characteristic classes for flat Diff(M)-foliations

Abstract: In this work we relate the known results about the homotopy type of classifying spaces for smooth foliations, with the homology and cohomology of the discrete group of diffeomorphisms of a smooth compact connected oriented manifold. The Mather-Thurston Theorem forms a bridge between the results on the homotopy types of classifying spaces and the various homology and cohomology groups that are studied. We introduce the algebraic K-theory of a manifold M that is derived from the discrete group of diffeomorphisms of M, and observe that the calculations of homotopy groups in this work are about these K-theory groups. We include a variety of remarks and open problems related to the study of the diffeomorphism groups and their homological invariants using the Mather-Thurston Theorem.