Adiabatic limits and spectral sequences for Riemannian foliations (Q1596298)

The authors investigate the spectral asymptotics on foliated manifolds of the Laplacian of bundle-like metrics which are blown up in the direction normal to the leaves of the foliation, the so-called adiabatic limits. Such limits were first studied by \textit{E. Witten} in [Commun. Math. Phys. 100, 197-229 (1985; Zbl 0581.58038)] for Riemannian bundles over circles. Relations between adiabatic limits and the Leray spectral sequence of a Riemannian bundle were presented in [\textit{R. R. Mazzeo} and \textit{R. B. Melrose}, J. Differ. Geom. 31, No. 1, 185-213 (1990; Zbl 0702.58007)]. The authors study the relations between adiabatic limits for general Riemannian foliations and the associated differentiable spectral sequence. The main aim of the paper is the generalization of Forman's results concerning the Laplacian and spectral sequences to arbitrary Riemannian foliations [\textit{R. Forman}, Commun. Math. Phys. 168, No. 1, 57-116 (1995; Zbl 0827.58001)]. In addition to the detailed proofs of the stated results the paper contains a long introductory section presenting the history of the problem with suitable references.