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Is the first differential Pontryagin class a morphism of stacks?

In Cech Cocycles for Characteristic Classes, Jean-Luc Brylinski and Dennis McLaughlin provide explicit formulas for Cech cocycles for characteristic classes of real and complex vector bundles, and show how to refine these to Cech-Deligne cocycles for differential characteristic classes in differential cohomology.

When the compact Lie group $G$ involved is enough connected, e.g., if one is interested in the second Chern class of a principal $SU(n)$-bundle, the Brylinski-McLaughlin formula drastically simplifies, and it can be shown that in this case it actually gives a morphism of stacks from the classifying stack of principal $G$-bundles with connections to the (higher) stack of principal $U(1)$-$n$-gerbes with connections (here $n+2$ is the degree of the characteristic class involved).

This stacky interpretation is emphatised, e.g., in the follow-up Cech cocycles for differential characteristic classes - An $\infty$-Lie theoretic construction, by Urs Schreiber, Jim Stasheff and myself, where it is obtained (as the title suggests) via integration of $L_\infty$-algebras to higher Lie groups. For this approach, the connectivity of $G$ is essential. For instance one can see that the first fractional differential Pontryagin class $\frac{1}{2}\hat{p}_1$ is a morphism of stacks from the stack of princiapl Spin bundles with connection to the 3-stack of $U(1)$-2-gerbes with connection, and this precisely reproduces Brylinski-McLaughlin construction, the but one cannot see the Brylinski-McLaughlin cocycle for the first differential Pontryagin class $\hat{p}_1$ for princiapal $SO$-bundles with connections via Lie integration: $SO$ is not enough connected to allow this. This pheneomenon is in a sense not surprising: for instance the "identity" morphism from the Lie algebra of $O(2)$ to the Lie algebra of $SO(2)$ cannot be integrated to a morphism of Lie groups from $O(2)$ to $SO(2)$ due to "lack of connectivity" reasons.

Yet the fact that a particular technique fails does not mean that a statement is false. So here is my question: is there a natural interpretation of Brylinski-McLaughlin cocycle for the first differential Pontryagin class $\hat{p}_1$ as a morphism of stacks (from $SO$-bundles with connections to $U(1)$-2-gerbes with connections)? or is there a natural interpretation of Brylinski-McLaughlin cocycle for the second differential Chern class $\hat{c}_2$ as a morphism of stacks from $U$-bundles (not $SU$!) with connections to $U(1)$-2-gerbes with connections)?

My feeling is that once there are no topological obstruction (i.e., once the characteristic classes are defined at the non-very-conected level, as in these cases), the morphism of stacks (which surely exists at the highly connected level) descends from the higher connected cover of $G$ involved to the original $G$. So, for instance since $\frac{1}{2}p_1$ is not an integral class for $SO$-bundles one can not make $\frac{1}{2}\hat{p}_1$ descend from principal Spin-bundles with connections to princiapal $SO$-bundles with connections; but since $p_1$ is an integral class for $SO$-bundles, then it should be possible that $\hat{p}_1$ descends. But all my attemps towards a rigorous proof of this have failed so far, so I've begun thinking that I may be wrong, and that $\hat{p}_1$ can be given no natural interpretation as a morphism of stacks after all.

Any suggestion, reference or criticism concerning this problem is welcome.