On the spectral theory of manifolds with cusps. (Q1606245)

The authors are interested in the spectral properties of generalized Dirac operators on noncompact Riemannian manifolds with finitely many cuspidal ends and such that, along each end, the sectional curvature is pinched between two negative constants. In particular, they derive criteria under which some of these operators are Fredholm (generalizing previous work by \textit{H.~P. McKean} [J. Differ. Geom. 4, 359--366 (1970; Zbl 0197.18003)] as well as \textit{H. Donnelly} and \textit{F. Xavier} [Am. J. Math. 106, 169--185 (1984; Zbl 0547.58034)]) and compute their index in terms of the eta invariants and the Betti numbers of the ends. A forthcoming paper by the authors will be devoted to the clarification of the definition of the appearing eta invariants for metrics that are not sufficiently smooth on the cross sections.