Appendix to ``Elliptic genera, involutions, and homogeneous spin- manifolds'' by Friedrich Hirzebruch and Peter Slodowy (Q2640948)

In a paper of \textit{F. Hirzebruch} and \textit{P. Slodowy} [ibid. 35, No.1-3, 309-343 (1990; Zbl 0712.57010)], a formula is derived for the signature of a simply connected homogeneous space G/H of a compact Lie group, H being a compact subgroup of G of maximal rank. In this appendix, the authors use this formula to compute the signature of the exponential symmetric spaces \(E_ 6/A_ 5\times A_ 1\), \(E_ 7/D_ 6\times A_ 1\), \(E_ 8/E_ 7\times A_ 1\) and \(E_ 8/D_ 8\). The most difficult case studied is \(E_ 8/D_ 8\), which has dimension 128 and signature equal to \(\pm 7\).