Riemannian submersions and factorization of Dirac operators (Q1711407)

An important role in \(K\)-theoretic versions of index theorems is played by shriek or wrong-way maps. These are maps given by internal Kasparov products with elements \(f!\in KK(C(X),C(Y))\) associated to smooth \(K\)-oriented maps \(f: X\to Y\) between smooth compact manifolds. It is a nontrivial theorem in [\textit{A. Connes} and \textit{G. Skandalis}, Publ. Res. Inst. Math. Sci. 20, 1139--1183 (1984; Zbl 0575.58030)] that these shriek maps are functorial: given two smooth \(K\)-oriented maps \(f: X\to Y\) and \(g: Y\to Z\), the equation \((g\circ f)!=f!\widehat\otimes_{C(Y)}g!\) holds, where the right hand side is an internal Kasparov product in \(KK\)-theory. In the special case that \(X\) and \(Y\) are \(\text{spin}^c\)-manifolds and \(Z\) is a single point, the elements \((g\circ f)!\) and \(g!\) are equal to the \(K\)-homology fundamental classes \([X]\in KK(C(X),\mathbb{C})\) and \([Y]\in KK(C(Y),\mathbb{C})\), respectively, and these fundamental classes are represented in the unbounded picture of \(KK\)-theory of [\textit{S. Baaj} and \textit{P. Julg}, C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. I 296, 875--878 (1983; Zbl 0551.46041)] by the Dirac operators \(D_X\) and \(D_Y\). It is thus an obvious question to ask whether the element \(f!\) is represented in the unbounded picture of \(KK\)-theory by an explicit unbounded operator \(S\) such that the special case of functoriality \([X]=f!\widehat\otimes_{C(Y)}[Y]\) lifts to the unbounded representatives, that is, if one has \(D_X=S\otimes 1+1\otimes_{\nabla}D_Y\), where the right hand side is the tensor sum representing the internal product in the unbounded picture of \(KK\)-theory. This question is particularly interesting when \(f\) is a Riemannian submersion, because then the element \(f!\) is known to be represented by a family of pseudodifferential operators of order zero on the fibres \(f^{-1}(\{y\})\) and it had to be expected that the unbounded operator \(S\) can be constructed by a family of Dirac operators on the fibres. According to the authors of the paper under review, an affirmative answer to the question in the case of Riemannian submersions is folklore, but a detailed written account had be missing in the literature. In this paper, the self-adjoint and regular unbounded operator \(S\) and the \(C^*\)-correspondence on which it acts are constructed in every imaginable detail and it is shown that they represent the element \(f!\) in the unbounded picture of \(KK\)-theory. The main theorem is that the tensor sum \(S\otimes 1+1\otimes_{\nabla}D_Y\) is unitarily equivalent to \(D_M\), but only up to a bounded curvature term. The curvature term is due to the fact that the unbounded \(KK\)-cycles encode the metric aspect of the geometry and this information is lost when passing to the \(KK\)-theory classes.