Boundary calculations in relative \(E\)-theory (Q1590893)

In the paper the author mainly studies the E-theory valued index map assigned to each first order elliptic differential operator on a manifold \(M\) (either open or complete or with boundary under some extra conditions). The main idea is to extend such a differential operator \(D\), on a Hermitian bundle over a Riemannian manifold \(M\), to a selfadjoint unbounded operator \(\widetilde{D} = \left[\begin{smallmatrix} 0 & D^{\min}_{-} \\ D^{\max}_{-} & 0 \end{smallmatrix}\right]\), with respect to some \(\mathbb Z/(2)\)-graduation with generator \(\varepsilon\). Using spectral functional calculus one associates to each \(f \otimes \varphi \in C_0(\mathbb R) \otimes C_0(M)\) a bounded operator \(M_\varphi f(t^{-1}\widetilde{D}+x\varepsilon)\) in \(L^2(S)\), where \(S\) is the spherical bundle. The main theorem (theorem 3.4) states that the family \[ \{\mathcal A^{\widetilde{D}}_t\} : f \otimes \varphi \in C_0(\mathbb R) \otimes C_0(M) \mapsto M_\varphi f(t^{-1}\widetilde{D}+x\varepsilon) \in \mathcal L(L^2(S)) \] determines an element \([D]\) of the E-theory group \(E_0(M)\). It is shown that: 1. Different selfadjoint extensions are associated to the same element of \(E\)-theory groups (proposition 3.6). 2. \([D] = [D_V := D + V]\) for any compactly supported potential \(V\) (proposition 3.7) and that \([D]\) depends only on the homotopy class of the Riemannian structure on \(M\) and Hermitian structure of \(S\) (propositions 3.8-3.10). This construction is then extended to the cases of complete manifolds (\S 3.2), manifolds with boundary (\S 3.3) and the abstract boundary calculation (\S 4) and in particular the cases of strongly pseudoconvex domain in \S 5. In some sense the results are similar to the index map with values in K-homology theory [see, \textit{N. Higson} and \textit{J. Roe}, ``Analytic K-homology'', Oxford Math. Monogr. (2000)] and the results of \textit{P. Baum, R. G. Douglas} and \textit{M. E. Taylor} [J. Differ. Geom. 30, No. 3, 761-804 (1989; Zbl 0697.58050)] (\S 6).