The Atiyah-Singer index theorem for families of Dirac operators: Two heat equation proofs (Q1075667)

In this paper we find two proofs of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem for families of Dirac operators \(\{D_ y\}_{y\in B}\) over closed manifold B where \(D_ y=\left( \begin{matrix} 0,D_-\\ D_+,0\end{matrix} \right)\) is the Dirac operator on closed manifold G with coefficients in an auxiliary vector bundle \(\xi\). There are two reasons that such a direct proof using the heat equation method is possible now. First, the Quillen formalism of superconnections extended by the author to the infinite-dimensional case gives the possibility of finding the most convenient form, which represents in the suitable sense \(Tr_ s \exp (-tD_ y)\) and makes it easy to prove that it also represents \(ch(\ker (D_{+,y})-\ker (D_{- ,y})).\) Secondly the stochastic differential calculus provides us with direct calculations that this form is equal to \(\int_{G}A(R^ G/2)\wedge ch(\xi).\)