Families index for manifolds with boundary, superconnections and cones. II: The Chern character (Q923382)

[For Part I, cf. ibid. 89, 313-363 (1990; Zbl 0696.53021).] In the present paper the authors first prove the existence and uniqueness of the superconnection heat kernels on families of manifolds with a continuous family of conical singularities. Then they show that the Chern character of the family of Dirac operators can be represented by a heat equation formula and, by taking the asymptotics of it, the final formula for the Chern character is obtained. The special importance in the study of the Levi-Civita superconnection has to be noted, introduced by the first author in Invent. Math. 83, 91-151 (1986; Zbl 0592.58047), and of the cone technique developed by the second author in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 76, 2103-2106 (1976; Zbl 0411.58003).