The Atiyah-Patodi-Singer signature formula for measured foliations (Q475825)

The author considers a compact manifold with boundary \(X_0\) endowed with a foliation \(\mathcal{F}_0\) transverse to the boundary, and which admits a holonomy invariant transverse measure \(\Lambda\). Inspired by a work of \textit{W. Lück} and \textit{T. Schick} [in: High-dimensional manifold topology. Proceedings of the school, ICTP, Trieste, Italy, May 21--June 8, 2001. River Edge, NJ: World Scientific. 362--399 (2003; Zbl 1044.58026)], the author defines three different types of signature for the pair (foliation, boundary foliation) as follows: i.) \textit{The analytic signature}, denoted by \(\sigma_{\Lambda,\mathrm{an}}(X_0,\partial X_0)\): is the leafwise average \(\Lambda\)-index of the signature operator on the extended manifold \(X\). ii.) \textit{Hodge signature}, denoted by \(\sigma_{\Lambda,\mathrm{Hodge}}(X_0,\partial X_0)\): is defined using the natural representation of the Borel groupoid \(\mathcal{R}\) of \(X\) on the field of square integrable harmonic forms on the leaves. iii.) \textit{de Rham signature}, denoted by \(\sigma_{\Lambda,\mathrm{dR}}(X_0,\partial X_0)\): is defined using the natural representation of the Borel groupoid \(\mathcal{R}_0\) of \(X_0\) on the field of the \(L^2\)-relative de Rham spaces of the leaves. The main result of the paper states that these three signatures coincide: \[ \sigma_{\Lambda,\mathrm{an}}(X_0,\partial X_0)=\sigma_{\Lambda,{\mathrm{Hodge}}}(X_0,\partial X_0)=\sigma_{\Lambda,\mathrm{dR}}(X_0,\partial X_0) \] and finally, as a consequence of the index formula, the author obtains the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer signature formula for measured foliations.