On the spectrum of the twisted Dolbeault Laplacian over Kähler manifolds (Q1023415)

The paper under review deals with estimates for the lower bounds of the first eigenvalue of twisted Dolbeault Laplacians over Kähler manifolds. Let \(M\) be a compact Kähler manifold of complex dimension \(n\). Let \(E\) be a holomorphic Hermitian vector bundle over \(M\) which is endowed with the so-called Chern connection \(\nabla_{A}\). Write respectively \(\deg(E)\), \(\text{rk}(E)\) and \(\Omega^{p,q}(E)\) for the degree, the rank and the space of sections of this bundle, \(p,q=0,1,\dots,n\). The Chern connection induces a second order differential operator on \(\Omega^{\cdot}(E)=\bigoplus_{p,q}\Omega^{p,q}(E)\) given by: \(\Delta=\overline{\partial_{A}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}+\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}}\), known as the twisted Dolbeault Laplacian. Here, as it is customary, \(\partial_{A}:\Omega^{p,q}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{p+1,q}\) and \(\overline{\partial_{A}}:\Omega^{p,q}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{p,q+1}\) denotes first order differential operators such that \(\nabla_{A}=\partial_{A}+\overline{\partial_{A}}\); and \(\partial_{A}^{\star}:\Omega^{p,q}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{p-1,q}\) and \(\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}:\Omega^{p,q}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{p,q-1}\) are their formal adjoints. In particular, the Dolbeault Laplacian reduces to the operator \(\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}}\) when restricted to \(\Omega^{0}(E)\). The main theorem in the paper under review gives an estimate for the first eigenvalue of the operator \(\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}}:\Omega^{0}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{0}(E)\). More precisely, the authors prove the following theorem: Theorem: Suppose the degree of \(E\) is negative and \(\nabla_{A}\) satisfies the Hermitian-Einstein condition. The first eigenvalue \(\lambda\) of the operator \(\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}}:\Omega^{0}(E)\rightarrow\Omega^{0}(E)\) satisfies the inequality \[ \lambda\geq-\frac{2n}{2n-1}\frac{\pi \deg(E)}{(n-1)!\,\text{rk}(E) \text{vol}(M)}. \] The authors give examples where the above bound is attained and they also deduce some information on the spectrum of twisted Dirac operators on Riemann surfaces. A key ingredient for the proof of the above theorem is the Weitzenböck formula relating the operator \(\overline{\partial_{A}^{\star}}\;\overline{\partial_{A}}\) with the square of a twisted Dirac operator.