A splitting formula for the spectral flow of the odd signature operator on 3-manifolds coupled to a path of \(SU(2)\) connections (Q813168): Difference between revisions

From the abstract: We establish a splitting formula for the spectral flow of the odd signature operator of a closed 3-manifold \(M\) coupled to a path of \(SU(2)\) connections, provided \(M=S\cup X\), where \(S\) is a solid torus. It describes the spectral flow on \(M\) in terms of the spectral flows on \(S, X\) (with certain Atiyah-Patodi-Singer boundary conditions) and two correction terms which depend only on endpoints. Our current result improves other splitting theorems by removing assumptions on the non-resonance level of the odd signature operator or the dimension of the kernel of the tangential operator, and allows progress towards a conjecture by Lisa Jeffrey in her work on Witten's 3-manifold invariants in the context of the asymptotic expansion conjecture.