Witten-Hodge theory for manifolds with boundary and equivariant cohomology

Boundary value problems on manifolds (58J32) Equivariant homology and cohomology in algebraic topology (55N91) Hodge theory in global analysis (58A14) Equivariant algebraic topology of manifolds (57R91)

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

N (X_{M})

has a unique

X_{M}

-harmonic field on

M

, with corresponding boundary conditions. Finally, we define the

X_{M}

-Poincar'{e} duality angles between the interior subspaces of

X_{M}

-harmonic fields on

M

with appropriate boundary conditions, following recent work of DeTurck and Gluck.

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