Generalized Ray-Singer conjecture. I: A manifold with a smooth boundary (Q1345162)

The paper is devoted to a proof of a generalized Ray-Singer conjecture for a manifold with boundary when the Dirichlet and the Neumann boundary conditions are independently given on each connected component of the boundary. It was computed the ratio between analytic and combinatorial torsions. The central in the paper is the following Gluing property (Theorem 1.1). Let the manifold \(M\) with a boundary \(\partial M = \cup N_ i\), and \(Z\)-union of \(N_ i\) where the Dirichlet boundary conditions are given, is divided in two pieces \(M_ 1\) and \(M_ 2\), glued along \(N\), and the metric is a direct product near \(N\) and \(\partial M\). Then for the analytic torsions \(T_ 0 (M_ k,N)\) with the Dirichlet boundary condition on \(N\) the following is true: The analytic torsion norm \(T_ 0(M,Z)\) is the tensor product of the analytic torsion norms for \((M_ 1, Z_ 1 \cup N)\), \((M_ 2, Z_ 2 \cup N)\), and for \(N\), \[ \varphi_{an} T_ 0(M,Z) = T_ 0(M_ 1, Z_ 1 \cup N) \otimes T_ 0(M_ 2, Z_ 2 \cup N) \otimes T_ 0 (N), \] where \(Z_ k = Z \cap \partial \overline{M_ k}\).