The degree of the Nicolai map in supersymmetric quantum mechanics (Q1111721)

In a previous paper [J. Funct. Anal. 68, 388-403 (1986)], the author has introduced, for certain smooth maps on an abstract Wiener space, a measure theoretic or probabilistic notion of degree, based on the attached Gaussian measure, which is beyond the sweep of the Leray- Schauder degree. The paper under review gives an application of this theory with suitable modifications to the nonlinear map A: \(C^{\alpha}\to {\mathcal D}'\) between the spaces on the circle S, defined by \[ (Aw)(t)=dw(t)/dt+(\nabla V)(w(t)),\quad t\in S. \] Here V is a real-valued \(C^{\infty}\) function on \({\mathbb{R}}^ m\) satisfying a certain growth condition. \(C^{\alpha}\equiv C^{\alpha}(S,{\mathbb{R}}^ m),\quad 0<\alpha <1/2,\) is the Banach space of the Hölder continuous loops w: \(S\to {\mathbb{R}}^ m\), and \({\mathcal D}'\equiv {\mathcal D}'(S,{\mathbb{R}}^ m)\), the space of distributions. There are the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck measure \(d\lambda\) on \(C^{\alpha}\) and the white noise measure \(d\kappa\) on the image space \(C^{\alpha -1}\) of the linear map \(\Lambda \equiv d/dt+1: C^{\alpha}\to {\mathcal D}'.\) The main result is to impart a meaning to the degree deg A for the map A: There exists an integer deg A for which \[ \int_{C^{\alpha}}A^*(\phi d\kappa)=(\deg A)\int_{C^{\alpha - 1}}\phi d\kappa \] for every \(\phi \in L^{\infty}(C^{\alpha - 1},d\kappa)\). Here \(A^*(\phi d\kappa)\) is the pullback of the signed measure \(\phi\) \(d\kappa\), as considered as a volume form on \(C^{\alpha -1}\), by the map A. As a corollary it is shown that \(\kappa\)-a.e. \(\xi \in C^{\alpha -1}\) is a regular value of A, and that, for \(\kappa\)-a.e. \(\xi \in C^{\alpha -1}\), the set \(A^{(-1)}(\xi)\) is finite and \[ \deg A=\sum_{A(w)=\xi}sgn(\nabla_ wA)\equiv \sum_{A(w)=\xi}sgn \det_ 2[\Lambda^{-1}(d/dt+\nabla^ 2_ wV)], \] where \(\det_ 2\) denotes the Carleman-Fredholm determinant. It is further shown that deg A equals the Leray-Schauder degree of the map \(\nabla V: {\mathbb{R}}^ m\to {\mathbb{R}}^ m\), if \(\nabla V\) is proper. The map A is what is called a Nicolai map [\textit{H. Nicolai}, Nucl. Phys. B 176, 419-428 (1980)] for a certain supersymmetric quantum mechanical model. \(A^*(d\kappa)\) is then formally the path integral for its corresponding Hamiltonian \(H=D^ 2\) acting on the \(L^ 2\) differential forms on \({\mathbb{R}}^ m\), where \(D=d_ V+d^*_ V\) with \(d_ V=e^{-V}\cdot d\cdot e^ V.\) The paper also visualizes this point to show: If \(f_ j\in C_ 0^{\infty}({\mathbb{R}}^ m),\) \(1\leq j\leq n\), then \[ \int_{C^{\alpha}}f_ 1(w(t_ 1))...f_ n(w(t_ n))A^*(d\kappa) \] \[ =Str[e^{-t_ 1D^ 2/2}f_ 1e^{-(t_ 2-t_ 1)D^ 2/2}...f_ ne^{-(1-t_ n)D^ 2/2}], \] with \(0<t_ 1<...<t_ n<1\), where Str denotes the supertrace. In particular, it is seen that \(\int_{C^{\alpha}}A^*(d\kappa)=Str e^{-D^ 2/2},\) and hence deg A equals the index of D.