Witten-Hodge theory for manifolds with boundary and equivariant cohomology

DOI10.1016/J.DIFGEO.2011.11.002zbMATH Open1241.58011arXiv1004.2687OpenAlexW2164179960WikidataQ115356762 ScholiaQ115356762MaRDI QIDQ417651FDOQ417651

Authors: Qusay S. A. Al-Zamil, James Montaldi

Publication date: 14 May 2012

Published in: Differential Geometry and its Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We consider a compact, oriented, smooth Riemannian manifold

M

(with or without boundary) and we suppose

G

is a torus acting by isometries on

M

. Given

X

in the Lie algebra and corresponding vector field

X_{M}

on

M

, one defines Witten's inhomogeneous coboundary operator

d_{X_{M}} = d + i o t a_{X_{M}} : O m e g a_{G}^{p} m o O m e g a_{G}^{m} p

(even/odd invariant forms on

M

) and its adjoint

d e l t a_{X_{M}}

. In the 1980s Witten showed that the resulting cohomology classes have

X_{M}

-harmonic representatives (forms in the null space of

D e l t a_{X_{M}} = (d_{X_{M}} + d e l t a_{X_{M}})^{2}

), and the cohomology groups are isomorphic to the ordinary de Rham cohomology groups of the set

N (X_{M})

of zeros of

X_{M}

. Our principal purpose is to extend these results to manifolds with boundary. In particular, we define relative (to the boundary) and absolute versions of the

X_{M}

-cohomology and show the classes have representative

X_{M}

-harmonic fields with appropriate boundary conditions. To do this we present the relevant version of the Hodge-Morrey-Friedrichs decomposition theorem for invariant forms in terms of the operators

d_{X_{M}}

and

d e l t a_{X_{M}}

. We also elucidate the connection between the

X_{M}

-cohomology groups and the relative and absolute equivariant cohomology, following work of Atiyah and Bott. This connection is then exploited to show that every harmonic field with appropriate boundary conditions on