Leafwise homotopies and Hilbert-Poincaré complexes. I: Regular HP-complexes and leafwise pull-back maps (Q470342)

This article is the first in a series of papers whose purpose is to study secondary homotopy invariants for laminations on compact manifolds. In particular, the authors eventually generalize a result by \textit{N. Keswani} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 62, No. 3, 771--783 (2000; Zbl 1021.58018)] which states that if \(\hat{M}\) is a normal covering of an odd-dimensional compact manifold \(M\), such that the fiber \(\Gamma\) of the covering map is discrete and torsion-free, then the associated eta invariant is homotopy invariant if and only if the Baum-Connes assembly map associated with \(\Gamma\) is an isomorphism. A crucial ingredient of the proof of this result is an explicit path between the K-theory classes of the signature operators, provided by \textit{N. Higson} and \textit{J. Roe} in [\(K\)-Theory 33, No. 4, 277--299 (2004; Zbl 1083.19002)]. In the current paper, given a lamination \((M,F)\) on a compact space \(M\) together with the choice of a transversal \(X\), in the spirit of [loc. cit.] the authors construct a Hilbert-Poincaré complex \(\mathcal{E}\), which provides the class of the longitudinal singnature in K-theory. The construction of this complex uses the restriction of the associated monodromy groupoid to \(X\), which is Morita equivalent to the (full) monodromy groupoid. (Note that the holonomy groupoid could be used as well.) Then, given a leafwise homotopy \(f : (M,F) \to (M',F')\), a Poincaré duality theorem is proven. As a consequence, the K-theory classes of the two signature operators are proven to coincide. Moreover, an explicit path between these classes is constructed.