On the regularized determinant for non-invertible elliptic operators (Q761691)

Let \(D: C^{\infty}(M,E)\to C^{\infty}(M,E)\) be an elliptic operator of positive order acting on sections of vector bundle E over closed manifold M. We assume that it has a ray of minimal growth which implies that its spectrum is discrete and that we can define zeta-function for \(Re(s)\gg 0\), \(\zeta (s,D)=tr D^{-s}\) which extends to a meromorphic function on C with finite value in \(s=0\). Then at least for invertible D we define \(Det(D)=\exp (-d\zeta /ds)(s,D)|_{s=0}\) (for normal D, (d\(\zeta\) /ds)(0,D) is formally equal to \(-\sum_{j}\ln \Lambda_ j\) where \(\Lambda_ j\) are eigenvalues). If D is non-invertible the authors introduce the space \({\mathcal N}=\sum_{k\in N}\ker (D^ k)\) which turns out to be of finite dimension. Let P be an orthogonal projection in \(L^ 2(M,E)\) on \({\mathcal N}\), then the operators \(D+P\), \((Id-P)\cdot D+P\) are invertible and have the same eigenvalues. They define the regularized determinant \[ Det'(D)=Det(D+P)=\lim_{t\to 0_+}Det(D+tId)/t^{\dim \quad {\mathcal N}}. \] They show the usefulness of this notion in the study of chiral changes in the fermionic path-integral variables.