Invariants of conformal Laplacians (Q1102555)

New conformal invariants are constructed by using the conformal Laplacian \(\square =d^*d+(n-2)s/4(n-1)\) on functions and its vector bundle analogue. Here s is the scalar curvature of a Riemannian manifold \(M^ n\). Two invariants are obtained from the asymptotic expansion \(k(t,x,x)\sim (4\pi t)^{-n/2}\sum a_ k(x)t^ k\) of the heat kernel k(t,x,y) of \(\square\). Namely, for n even, \(a_{(n-2)/2}\) is a pointwise conformal invariant of weight -2 and \(\int a_{n/2}\) is a global invariant. Explicit calculations of \(a_{(n-2)/2}\) for \(n=2,4,6,8\) and of \(a_{n/2}\) for \(n=2,4,6\) follow. In odd dimensions a (spectral) conformal invariant is provided by the determinant det \(\square\). For even dimensional spin manifolds the authors consider the conformal Laplacians \(\square_ L\) and \(\square_ R\) acting on left and right spinors and study the ratio det \(\square_ L/\det \square_ R\). In some cases this also happens to be a conformal invariant.