Dirac operators on foliations with invariant transverse measures (Q2100716)

\textit{M. F. Atiyah} and \textit{I. M. Singer} [Ann. Math. (2) 87, 546--604 (1968; Zbl 0164.24301)] introduced a famous theorem for the index of elliptic operators. About 10 years later, \textit{A. Connes} [Lect. Notes Math. 725, 19--143 (1979; Zbl 0412.46053)] introduced the concept of the transverse measure on a foliated manifold and proved a generalized version of Atiyah-Singer's theorem for Connes' measured foliations. \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{H. B. Lawson jun.} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 58, 83--196 (1983; Zbl 0538.53047)] studied the Dirac operator on complete Riemannian manifolds and they obtained a groundbreaking powerful result known as the relativity index theorem. As the authors themselves assert, the rather lengthy paper studies an extension of Gromov-Lawson's result to Dirac operators defined along the leaves of foliations of non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds which admit invariant transverse measures. After the first three sections: Introduction, Preliminaries and Overview of leafwise Dirac operators, the main results of the paper are presented in Sections 4, 5 and 6. In Section 4, the authors prove two results (Theorem 4.6 and Theorem 4.12) about relative measured index theorem for foliated manifolds with invariant transverse measures. In Section 5, the authors introduce Theorem 5.2 which provides a condition to ensure that the assumptions of the foliation relative measured index theorem are satisfied. Next, Theorems 5.3, 5.4. 5.12, 5.13 are the extended versions of the index theorem for Dirac operators defined along the leaves of foliations of non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds and, in essence, these theorems are direct consequences of Theorems 4.6, 4.12 and 5.2. Finally, in Section 6 the authors define an invariant for pairs (\(g_1, g_2\)) of positive scalar curvature (PSC) metrics on spin foliations as in [\textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{H. B. Lawson jun.}, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 58, 83--196 (1983; Zbl 0538.53047)], and show in Theorem 6.2 that if the invariant of the pair (\(g_1, g_2\)) is non-zero, then these metrics are not in the same path connected component of the space of PSC metrics on the considered spin foliation. The authors also prove in Theorem 6.8 that the space of PSC metrics on each of these spin foliations has infinitely many path connected components.