Witten deformation of analytic torsion and the spectral sequence of a filtration (Q1913616)

An asymptotic expansion for the Ray-Singer analytic torsion of a flat vector bundle \(F\) over a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) is derived. Let \(f: M\to \mathbb{R}\) be a Morse function such that \(\nabla f\) satisfies the Morse-Smale transversality condition and let \(g^F\) be a smooth Euclidean metric on \(F\). \(g_t^F= e^{-2tf} g^F\) is the Witten deformation of \(F\). It is proved that \(\rho^{\text{RS}}\), the Ray-Singer analytic torsion, satisfies \[ \log \rho^{\text{RS}} (t)= a_0+ a_1 t+b\log (t/ \pi)+ o(1) \qquad \text{as} \quad t\to \infty. \] Here the coefficient \(b\) is a half-integer depending only on the Betti numbers of \(F\). The coefficients \(a_0\) and \(a_1\) are explicitly calculated in terms of the spectral sequence of a filtration associated with \(f\) in the case where all the critical values are rational.