Residue formulation of the Chern character on smooth manifolds (Q2371781)

The Chern character has many different constructions. By the Chern-Weil approach, one obtains the Chern character of a smooth complex vector bundle via a connection on the bundle and its curvature. \textit{D. Quillen}'s formalism [Topology 24, 89-95 (1985; Zbl 0569.58030)] involves a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded connection (a superconnection) on a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded vector bundle. The main result of the paper under review expresses a dualized version of the Chern character, constructed via Quillen's formalism, in terms of certain residues. More precisely, let \(E\) be a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded (or super) smooth complex vector bundle over a smooth closed \(n\)-dimensional manifold \(M\) (with fixed metrics on \(E\) and the tangent bundle \(TM\)), and let \(D\) be an elliptic, odd, first-order, selfadjoint differential operator on \(E\). Let \(\pi: T^\ast M\rightarrow M\) denote the projection of the cotangent bundle. Quillen's formalism, using a connection \(\nabla\) on \(E\) and the symbol \(L\) of the operator \(D\), yields a superconnection \(\nabla_ L\) on the pullback-bundle \(\pi^\ast E\). The Chern character form, the supertrace \({\text{tr}_{\text{s}}}\text{exp}{\nabla_ L^ 2}\), is a mixed closed differential form, and its cohomology class on \(T^\ast M\) depends only on the underlying vector bundle (not on \(\nabla\) or \(L\)). But rather than passing to the cohomology class, the author considers the \`\` dual Chern character\'\' , that is, the functional \(\eta\mapsto \int_{T^\ast M}\pi^\ast(\eta){\text{tr}_{\text{s}}}\text{exp}{\nabla_ L^ 2}\) on \(\Omega^\ast(M)\). The main result is the following formula for the dual Chern character: If \(X_ R\) is the complement of the \(R\)-tubular neighbourhood of the zero section in \(T^\ast M\), then for any \(R>0\) and any \(\eta\in \Omega^\kappa(M)\) one has \[ \int_{T^\ast M} {\text{tr}_{\text{s}}}\pi^\ast(\eta)\text{exp}{\nabla_ L^ 2}= \text{Res}_{| {z=\frac{\kappa}{2}-n}} \Gamma(z) \int_{X_R} {\text{tr}_{\text{s}}} \pi^\ast(\eta)[(-\nabla_ L^ 2)^{-z}]_{2n-\kappa}, \] where the right-hand side integral is understood to be the meromorphic extension from the region \(\text{Re}(z)\gg 0\), on which the integral converges. The author observes that the right-hand side of the formula does not depend on \(R\) and remarks that his formula is similar to the formula derived by \textit{A. Connes} and \textit{H. Moscovici} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 5, No. 2, 174-243 (1995; Zbl 0960.46048)] for the Chern character in noncommutative geometry. Similarly to Connes and Moscovici, the author's argument is based on the Mellin transform.