The \(S^1\)-equivariant signature for semi-free actions as an index formula (Q2318040)

This paper is a condensed version of the original author's PhD thesis where the theory of induced Dirac-Schrödinger-type operators is developed in detail. \textit{J. Lott} [Math. Ann. 316, No. 4, 617--657 (2000; Zbl 0946.57030)] studied a signature invariant for quotients of closed oriented \((4k+1)\)-dimensional manifolds \(M\) by \(S^1\)-actions. This integer-valued signature, denoted by \(\sigma_{S^1}(M)\), is defined at the level of basic forms with compact support. In fact Lott defined \(\sigma_{S^1}(M)\) for the orbit space of a compact orientable manifold with a semi-free \(S^1\)-action but he did not construct a Dirac-type operator which has this signature as its index. The aim of this paper is to construct such operator on the orbit space and to show that it is essentially unique and that its index coincides with Lott's signature, at least when the stratified space satisfies the so-called Witt condition. For the non-Witt case, this operator remains essentially self-adjoint (in contrast to the Hodge-de Rham operator) and it has a well-defined index which the author conjectures will also compute \(\sigma_{S^1}(M)\).