Precise Arrhenius law for \(p\)-forms: the Witten Laplacian and Morse-Barannikov complex (Q1947174)

Consider an oriented compact manifold \((M,g)\) and a (Morse) smooth function \(f\) on \(M\), with non-degenerate unital point and pairwise distinct critical values. To any sufficiently small \(h>0\), associate \(d_{f,h}:= hd+ df\Lambda\), its adjoint \(d^*_{f,h}= hd^*+ i_{\nabla f}\), and the Witten Laplacian \(\Delta^p_{f,h}:= d^*_{f,h} d_{f,h}+ d_{f,h} d^*_{f,h}\) acting on smooth \(p\)-forms. The authors give an accurate description of the eigenvalues of \(\Delta^p_{f,h}\) which are located in \(]0,h^{3/2}[\): they are indexed by the critical point \(U^p\) with index \(p\), as follows: \[ U^p\mapsto K(U^{p+1})\times {h\over \pi}\times \Biggl|{\lambda^{(p+1)}_1\cdots \lambda^{(p+1)}_{p+1}\over \lambda^{(p)}_1\cdots \lambda^{(p)}_p}\Biggr|\times \Biggl|{\text{Hess\,} f(U^p)\over \text{Hess\,}f(U^{p+1}}\Biggr|^{1/2}\times e^{{-2\over h}(f(U^{p+1})- f(U^p))}\times (1+ O(h)), \] where the \(\lambda^{(e)}_j\)'s are the negative eigenvalues of \(\text{Hess\,}f(U^e)\) and \(K(U^e)> 0\) does not depend on \((h,g,f)\) (and is expected to be equal to \(1\)). The key ingredient to handle the case \(p\geq 1\) is \textit{S. A. Barannikov}'s presentation of Morse theory in [Adv. Sov. Math. 21, 93--115 (1994; Zbl 0996.57514)].