Twisted torsion on compact hyperbolic spaces: a representation-theoretic approach (Q700542)

The paper studies a twisted version \(\tau_\theta\) of the Ray-Singer analytic torsion on compact locally symmetric spaces \(X=K\setminus G/{\Gamma}\). Here \(G\) is a noncompact connected semisimple Lie group, \(K\) is the maximal compact subgroup, \(\Gamma\) is a discrete torsion-free cocompact subgroup and \(\theta\) is an involutive automorphism of \(X\). It is shown that the twisted torsion \(\tau_\theta\) satisfies \(|\tau_\theta|=1\) in the case when \(G\) is \(SO_o(2n+1,1)\) and \(\theta\) is the Cartan involution.