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Paolo Piazza

Publications and source records attributed to Paolo Piazza.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

The index of Dirac operators on manifolds with fibered boundaries

Let X be a compact manifold with boundary, and suppose that the boundary is the total space of a fibration with base Y and fibre Z. Let D be a generalized Dirac operator associated to a Phi-metric g on X. Under the assumption that D is fully elliptic we prove an index formula for D. The proof is in two steps: first, using results of Melrose and Rochon, we show that the index is unchanged if we pass to a certain b-metric h(s), with s a positive real number. Next we write the b- (i.e. the APS) index formula for h(s); the Phi-index formula follows by analyzing the limiting behaviour as s goes to zero of the two terms in the formula. The interior term is studied directly whereas the adiabatic limit formula for the eta invariant follows from work of Bismut and Cheeger.

math.DG↗

Bordism, rho-invariants and the Baum-Connes conjecture

Let G be a finitely generated discrete group. In this paper we establish vanishing results for rho-invariants associated to (i) the spin-Dirac operator of a spin manifold with positive scalar curvature (ii) the signature operator of the disjoint union of a pair of homotopy equivalent oriented manifolds with fundamental group G. The invariants we consider are more precisely - the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer rho-invariant associated to a pair of finite dimensional unitary representations. - the L2-rho invariant of Cheeger-Gromov - the delocalized eta invariant of Lott for a finite conjugacy class of G. We prove that all these rho-invariants vanish if the group G is torsion-free and the Baum-Connes map for the maximal group C^*-algebra is bijective. For the delocalized invariant we only assume the validity of the Baum-Connes conjecture for the reduced C^*-algebra. In particular, the three rho-invariants associated to the signature operator are, for such groups, homotopy invariant. For the APS and the Cheeger-Gromov rho-invariants the latter result had been established by Navin Keswani. Our proof re-establishes this result and also extends it to the delocalized eta-invariant of Lott. Our method also gives some information about the eta-invariant itself (a much more saddle object than the rho-invariant).

math.KT↗

Cut-and-Paste on Foliated Bundles

We discuss the behaviour of the signature index class of closed foliated bundles under the operation of cutting and pasting. Along the way we establish several index theoretic results: we define Atiyah-Patodi-Singer (APS) index classes for Dirac-type operators on foliated bundles with boundary; we prove a relative index theorem for the difference of two APS-index classes associated to different boundary conditions; we prove a gluing formula on closed foliated bundles that are the union of two foliated bundles with boundary; we establish a variational formula for APS-index classes of a 1-parameter family of Dirac-type operators on foliated bundles (this formula involves the noncommutative spectral flow of the boundary family). All these formulas take place in the $K$-theory of a suitable cross-product algebra. We then apply these results in order to find sufficient conditions ensuring the equality of the signature index classes of two cut-and-paste equivalent foliated bundles. We give applications to the question of when the Baum-Connes higher signatures of closed foliated bundles are cut-and-paste invariant.

math.DG↗

Elliptic Operators and Higher Signatures

Building on the theory of elliptic operators, we give a unified treatment of the following topics: - the problem of homotopy invariance of Novikov's higher signatures on closed manifolds; - the problem of cut-and-paste invariance of Novikov's higher signatures on closed manifolds; - the problem of defining higher signatures on manifolds with boundary and proving their homotopy invariance.

math.DG↗

Etale Groupoids, eta invariants and index theory

Let $Γ$ be a discrete finitely generated group. Let $\hat{M}\to T$ be a $Γ$-equivariant fibration, with fibers diffeomorphic to a fixed even dimensional manifold with boundary $Z$. We assume that $Γ\to \hat{M}\to \hat{M}/Γ$ is a Galois covering of a compact manifold with boundary. Let $(D^+ (θ))_{θ\in T}$ be a $Γ$-equivariant family of Dirac-type operators. Under the assumption that the boundary family is $L^2$-invertible, we define an index class in the K-theory of the cross-product algebra, $K_0 (C^0 (T)\rtimes_r Γ)$. If, in addition, $Γ$ is of polynomial growth, we define higher indeces by pairing the index class with suitable cyclic cocycles. Our main result is then a formula for these higher indeces: the structure of the formula is as in the seminal work of Atiyah, Patodi and Singer, with an interior geometric contribution and a boundary contribution in the form of a higher eta invariant associated to the boundary family. Under similar assumptions we extend our theorem to any $G$-proper manifold, with $G$ an étale groupoid. We employ this generalization in order to establish a higher Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index formula on certain foliations with boundary. Fundamental to our work is a suitable generalization of Melrose $b$-pseudodifferential calculus as well as the superconnection proof of the index theorem on $G$-proper manifolds recently given by Gorokhovsky and Lott.

math.DG↗

Dirac operators, heat kernels and microlocal analysis Part II: analytic surgery

Let X be a closed Riemannian manifold and let H\hookrightarrow X be an embedded hypersurface. Let X=X_+ \cup_H X_- be a decomposition of X into two manifolds with boundary, with X_+ \cap X_- = H. In this expository article, surgery -- or gluing -- formulæfor several geometric and spectral invariants associated to a Dirac-type operator ð_X on X are presented. Considered in detail are: the index of ð_X, the index bundle and the determinant bundle associated to a family of such operators, the eta invariant and the analytic torsion. In each case the precise form of the surgery theorems, as well as the different techniques used to prove them, are surveyed.

math.DG↗