Adiabatic limits and foliations (Q2765028)

Starting from the observation that the Bott connection naturally arises as the adiabatic limit of Levi-Cività connections, the authors seek a direct geometric proof of the vanishing theorem of Connes. They construct certain natural elliptic operators associated with foliations and show for the case of almost Riemannian foliations, the Connes' theorem can be deduced from a Lichnerowicz type formula and the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. Contents include: an introduction; adiabatic limits and foliations; proof of the vanishing theorem of Connes for almost Riemannian foliations; an announcement of two new vanishing theorems; and an appendix which relates almost isometric with their notion of almost Riemannian foliations.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0972.00054].