Manifolds with Many Rarita–Schwinger Fields

The Rarita–Schwinger operator is the twisted Dirac operator restricted to $$\nicefrac 32$$ 3 2 -spinors. Rarita–Schwinger fields are solutions of this operator which are in addition divergence-free. This is an overdetermined problem and solutions are rare; it is even more unexpected for there to be large dimensional spaces of solutions. In this paper we prove the existence of a sequence of compact manifolds in any given dimension greater than or equal to 4 for which the dimension of the space of Rarita–Schwinger fields tends to infinity. These manifolds are either simply connected Kähler–Einstein spin with negative Einstein constant, or products of such spaces with flat tori. Moreover, we construct Calabi–Yau manifolds of even complex dimension with more linearly independent Rarita–Schwinger fields than flat tori of the same dimension.

THE LOGARITHMIC RESIDUE DENSITY OF A GENERALIZED LAPLACIAN

We show that the residue density of the logarithm of a generalized Laplacian on a closed manifold defines an invariant polynomial-valued differential form. We express it in terms of a finite sum of residues of classical pseudodifferential symbols. In the case of the square of a Dirac operator, these formulas provide a pedestrian proof of the Atiyah–Singer formula for a pure Dirac operator in four dimensions and for a twisted Dirac operator on a flat space of any dimension. These correspond to special cases of a more general formula by Scott and Zagier. In our approach, which is of perturbative nature, we use either a Campbell–Hausdorff formula derived by Okikiolu or a noncommutative Taylor-type formula.

DETERMINANT LINE BUNDLES AND TOPOLOGICAL INVARIANTS OF HYPERBOLIC GEOMETRY

Some remarks on determinant line bundles and topological invariants are given. The index of the twisted Dirac operator acting on real hyperbolic manifolds is computed. We briefly discuss physical applications of results.

Twistor spaces and the adiabatic limits of Dirac operators

We show that a (Spinq-style) twistor space admits a canonical Spin structure. The adiabatic limits of η-invariants of the associated Dirac operator and of an intrinsically twisted Dirac operator are then investigated.