Families torsion and Morse functions for covering spaces (Q2114138)

The Cheeger-Müller theorem is a fundamental theorem in global analysis on manifolds. Consider the Hodge Laplacian of a closed Riemannian manifold with coefficient in a flat bundle. There are two ways of defining the notion of a torsion from the determinant of the Laplacian. The topological definition, known as the Reidemeister torsion, is to take the determinant of the Laplaican descending to homology of the manifold with coefficient in the flat bundle. The analytical definition, known as analytic torsion or Ray-Singer torsion, is to take the regularized determinant using the spectral decomposition of the Laplacian. Ray-Singer conjectured that the analytic torsion is equal to the Reidemeister torsion, hence a topological invariant. The conjecture was firstly proved by Cheeger-Müller, later proved using analytical methods by Bismut-Zhang, and has been generalized to various geometric settings, leading to many interesting research topics in geometry and analysis. This paper is a vast generalization of Cheeger-Müller theorem to the covering space of a fiberation, by comparing its \(L^2\)-analytic torsion form and \(L^2\)-combinatorial torsion form. The main result Theorem 4.1 of the paper is based on the proof of the Cheeger-Müller theorem by \textit{J.-M. Bismut} and \textit{W. Zhang} [An extension of a theorem by Cheeger and Müller. With an appendix by François Laudenbach. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (1992; Zbl 0781.58039)], and by \textit{W. Zhang} [Topology 44, No. 6, 1093--1131 (2005; Zbl 1082.58030)] in the setting of the covering space. The statement of the main result involves contributions from the base, which increases the technicality of the proofs.