Uniqueness of the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula (after Gilkey-Park-Sekigawa) (Q5962621)

For an oriented Riemannian manifold, the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula establishes that the Pfaffian of the metric represents, in the de Rham cohomology, the Euler class of the tangent bundle. Hence, if the underlying manifold is compact, the integral of the Pfaffian is a topological invariant, namely the Euler characteristic of the manifold. In the present paper the authors refine a result of \textit{P. B. Gilkey} [Ann. Math. (2) 102, 187--203 (1975; Zbl 0312.53014); Adv. Math. 28, 1--10 (1978; Zbl 0378.53006)], that characterizes this formula as the only (non-trivial) integral of a differential invariant that is independent of the underlying metric. To this end, they use some computations regarding dimensional identities of the curvature due to \textit{P. Gilkey} et al. [J. Geom. Phys. 62, No. 4, 814--825 (2012; Zbl 1246.53022)].