Let M be a closed compact n-dimensional manifold with n odd. We calculate the first and second variations of the zeta-regularized determinants det^\primeΛand det L as the metric on M varies, where Δdenotes the Laplacian on functions and L denotes the conformal Laplacian. We see that the behavior of these functionals denotes the conformal Laplacian. We see that the behavior of these functionals depends on the dimension. Indeed, every critical metric for (-1)^{(n-1)/2}det^\primeΛor (-1)^{(n-1}/2}| det L| has finite index. Consequently there are no local maxima if n=4m+1 and no local minima if n=4m+3. We show that the standard 3-sphere is a local maximum for det^\primeΛwhile the standard (4m-3)-sphere with m=1,2,...,4, is a saddle point. By contrast, for all odd n, the standard n-sphere is a local extremal for det L.
An important tool in our work is the canonical trace on odd class operators in odd dimensions. This trace is related to the determinant by the formula det Q = TR log Q, and we prove some basic results on how to calculate the trace.
In this paper we first establish the relation between the zeta-determinant of a Dirac Laplacian with the Dirichlet boundary condition and the APS boundary condition on a cylinder. Using this result and the gluing formula of the zeta-determinant given by Burghelea, Friedlander and Kappeler with some assumptions, we prove the adiabatic decomposition theorem of the zeta-determinant of a Dirac Laplacian. This result was originally proved by J. Park and K. Wojciechowski in [11] but our method is completely different from the one they presented.
The odd signature operator is a Dirac operator which acts on the space of differential forms of all degrees and whose square is the usual Laplacian. We extend the result of [15] to prove the gluing formula of the zeta-determinants of Laplacians acting on differential forms of all degrees with respect to the boundary conditions ${\mathcal P}_{-, {\mathcal L}_{0}}$, ${\mathcal P}_{+, {\mathcal L}_{1}}$. We next consider a double of de Rham complexes consisting of differential forms of all degrees with the absolute and relative boundary conditions. Using a similar method, we prove the gluing form…
We find an explicit expression for the zeta-regularized determinant of (the Friedrichs extension) of the Laplacian on a compact Riemann surface of genus one with conformal metric of curvature $1$ having a single conical singularity of angle $4π$.
We study comparison formulas for $ζ$-regularized determinants of self-adjoint extensions of the Laplacian on flat conical surfaces of genus $g\geq 2$. The cases of trivial and non-trivial holonomy of the metric turn out to differ significantly.
Compact polyhedral surfaces (or, equivalently, compact Riemann surfaces with conformal flat conical metrics) of an arbitrary genus are considered. After giving a short self-contained survey of their basic spectral properties, we study the zeta-regularized determinant of the Laplacian as a functional on the moduli space of these surfaces. An explicit formula for this determinant is obtained.
We study the asymptotics of the determinant of Laplacian on a translation surface (a compact Riemann surface equipped with a conformal flat conical metric with trivial holonomy) of genus g with 2g-2 conical points of angle 4πas two conical points collide.
The Teichmuller space Teich(S) of a surface S in genus g>1 is a real submanifold of the quasifuchsian space QF(S). We show that the determinant of the Laplacian det'(Delta) on Teich(S) has a unique holomorphic extension to QF(S).
We present gluing formulas for zeta regularized determinants of Dolbeault laplacians on Riemann surfaces. These are expressed in terms of determinants of associated operators on surfaces with boundary satisfying local elliptic boundary conditions. The conditions are defined using the additional structure of a framing, or trivialization of the bundle near the boundary. An application to the computation of bosonization constants follows directly from these formulas.
The gluing formula of the zeta-determinant of a Laplacian given by Burghelea, Friedlander and Kappeler contains an unknown constant. In this paper we compute this constant to complete the formula under the assumption of the product structure near boundary. As applications of this result,we prove the adiabatic decomposition theorems of the zeta-determinant of a Laplacian with respect to the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions and of the analytic torsion with respect to the absolute and relative boundary conditions.
We investigate the functional determinant of the laplacian on piece-wise flat two-dimensional surfaces, with conical singularities in the interior and/or corners on the boundary. Our results extend earlier investigations of the determinants on smooth surfaces with smooth boundaries. The differences to the smooth case are: a) different ``interaction energies'' between pairs of conical singularities than one would expect from a naive extrapolation of the results for a smooth surface; and b) ``self-energies'' of the singularities.
We construct a determinant of the Laplacian for infinite-area surfaces which are hyperbolic near infinity and without cusps. In the case of a convex co-compact hyperbolic metric, the determinant can be related to the Selberg zeta function and thus shown to be an entire function of order two with zeros at the eigenvalues and resonances of the Laplacian. In the hyperbolic near infinity case the determinant is analyzed through the zeta-regularized relative determinant for a conformal metric perturbation. We establish that this relative determinant is a ratio of entire functions of order two with …
On compact surfaces with or without boundary, Osgood, Phillips and Sarnak proved that the maximum of the determinant of the Laplacian within a conformal class of metrics with fixed area occurs at a metric of constant curvature and, for negative Euler characteristic, exhibited a flow from a given metric to a constant curvature metric along which the determinant increases. The aim of this paper is to perform a similar analysis for the determinant of the Laplacian on a non-compact surface whose ends are asymptotic to hyperbolic funnels or cusps. In that context, we show that the Ricci flow conver…
we discuss the decomposition of the zeta-determinant of the square of the Dirac operator into the contributions coming from the different parts of the manifold in the case of an invertible tangential operator.
The Teichmueller space Teich(S) of a surface S in genus g>1 is a totally real submanifold of the quasifuchsian space QF(S). We show that the determinant of the Laplacian det'(Δ) on Teich(S) has a unique holomorphic extension to QF(S). To realize this holomorphic extension as the determinant of differential operators on S, we introduce a holomorphic family {Δ_{μ,ν}} of elliptic second order differential operators on S whose parameter space is the space of pairs of Beltrami differentials on S and which naturally extends the Laplace operators of hyperbolic metrics on S. We study the determinant o…
We consider an equivariant analogue of a conjecture of Borcherds. Let $Y$ be a real $K3$ surface without real points. Let $g$ be a Ricci-flat Kaehler metric on $Y$ invariant under the complex conjugation. We shall prove that the equivariant determinant of the Laplacian of $(Y,g)$ with respect to the complex conjugation is expressed as the norm of the Borcherds Phi-function at the "period point". Here the period is not the one in algebraic geometry.
We prove a formula for the determinant of Laplacian on an arbitrary compact polyhedral surface of genus one. This formula generalizes the well-known Ray-Singer result for a flat torus. A special case of flat conical metrics given by the modulus of a meromorphic quadratic differential on an elliptic surface is also considered. We study the determinant of Laplacian as a functional on the moduli space of meromorphic quadratic differentials with L simple poles and L simple zeros and derive formulas for variations of this functional w. r. t. natural coordinates on this moduli space. A new proof of …
The finite volume Laplacian can be defined in all dimensions and is a natural way to approximate the operator on a simplicial mesh. In the most general setting, its definition with orthogonal duals may require that not all volumes are positive; an example is the case corresponding to two-dimensional finite elements on a non-Delaunay triangulation. Nonetheless, in many cases two- and three-dimensional Laplacians can be shown to be negative semidefinite with a kernel consisting of constants. This work generalizes work in two dimensions that gives a geometric description of the Laplacian determin…
Given two unitary involutions $σ_{1}$ and $σ_{2}$ satisfying $G σ_{i} = - σ_{i} G$ on $ker B$ on a compact manifold with cylindrical end, M. Lesch, K. Wojciechowski ([LW]) and W. Müller ([M]) established the formula describing the difference of two eta-invariants with the APS boundary conditions associated with $σ_{1}$ and $σ_{2}$. In this paper we establish the analogous formula for the zeta-determinants of Dirac Laplacians. For the proof of the result we use the Burghelea-Friedlander-Kappeler's gluing formula for zeta-determinants and the scattering theory developed by W. Müller in [M]. This…
We obtain explicit expressions for the determinants of the Laplacians on zero and one forms for an infinite class of three dimensional lens spaces $L(p,q)$. These expressions can be combined to obtain the Ray-Singer torsion of these lens spaces. As a consequence we obtain an infinite class of formulae for the Riemann zeta function $ζ(3)$. The value of these determinants (and the torsion) grows as the size of the fundamental group of the lens space increases and this is also computed. The triviality of the torsion for just the three lens spaces $L(6,1)$, $L(10,3)$ and $L(12,5)$ is also noted. (…
We present and prove Polyakov-Alvarez type comparison formulas for the determinants of Friederichs extensions of Laplacians corresponding to conformally equivalent metrics on a compact Riemann surface with conical singularities. In particular, we find how the determinants depend on the orders of conical singularities. We also illustrate these general results with several examples: based on our Polyakov-Alvarez type formulas we recover known and obtain new explicit formulas for determinants of Laplacians on singular surfaces with and without boundary. In one of the examples we show that on the …
The functional determinant of an elliptic operator with positive, discrete spectrum may be defined as $e^{-Z'(0)}$, where $Z(s)$, the zeta function, is the sum $\sum_n^{\infty} λ_n^{-s}$ analytically continued to $s$ around the origin. In this paper $Z'(0)$ is calculated for the Laplace operator with Dirichlet boundary conditions inside polygons and simplices with the topology of a disc in the Euclidean plane. The domains we consider are hence piece--wise flat with corners on the boundary and in the interior. Our results are complementary to earlier investigations of the determinants on smooth…
We explicitly express the spectral determinant of Friederichs Dirichlet Laplacians on the 2-dimensional hyperbolic (Gaussian curvature -1) cones in terms of the cone angle and the geodesic radius of the boundary. The related results in the recent paper "Riemann-Roch isometries in the non-compact orbifold setting," J. Eur. Math. Soc. 22 (2020) by G. Freixas i Montplet and A. von Pippich turn out to be incorrect.
We consider odd Laplace operators arising in odd symplectic geometry. Approach based on semidensities (densities of weight 1/2) is developed. The role of semidensities in the Batalin--Vilkovisky formalism is explained. In particular, we study the relations between semidensities on an odd symplectic supermanifold and differential forms on a purely even Lagrangian submanifold. We establish a criterion of ``normality'' of a volume form on an odd symplectic supermanifold in terms of the canonical odd Laplacian acting on semidensities.
We give an integral representaion of the zeta-reguralized determinant of Laplacians on three dimensional Heisenberg manifolds, and study a behaivior of the values when we deform the uniform discrete subgroups. Heiseberg manifolds are the total space of a fiber bundle with a torus as the base space and a circle as a typical fiber, then the deformation of the uniform discrete subgroups means that the "radius" of the fiber goes to zero. We explain the lines of the calculations precisely for three dimensional cases and state the corresponding results for five dimensional Heisenberg manifolds. We s…
We prove sharp inequalities for determinants of Toeplitz operators and twisted Laplace operators on the two-sphere, generalizing the Moser-Trudinger-Onofri inequality. In particular a sharp version of conjectures of Gillet-Soule and Fang motivated by Arakelov geometry is obtained; applications to SU(2)-invariant determinantal random point processes on the two-sphere are also discussed. The inequalities are obtained as corollaries of a general theorem about the maximizers of a certain non-local functional defined on the space of all positively curved Hermitian metrics on an ample line bundle ov…
For a class of even dimensional conformally compact manifolds (X,g), we define a generalized Krein spectral function by applying a renormalized trace functional to the spectral measure of the Laplacian. We then show that this is the phase of the Kontsevich-Vishik determinant det S(s) of the scattering operator S(s) of (the Laplacian of) g and we analyze the divisors of det(S(s)). As an application for convex co-compact hyperbolic quotients, we obtain a functional equation for Selberg's Zeta function Z(s), we express the determinant of the GJMS conformal Laplacians of the conformal infinity of …
We study the regularized determinant of the Laplacian as a functional on the space of Mandelstam diagrams (noncompact translation surfaces glued from finite and semi-infinite cylinders). A Mandelstam diagram can be considered as a compact Riemann surface equipped with a conformal flat singular metric $|ω|^2$, where $ω$ is a meromorphic one-form with simple poles such that all its periods are pure imaginary and all its residues are real. The main result is an explicit formula for the determinant of the Laplacian in terms of the basic objects on the underlying Riemann surface (the prime form, th…
Let Σbe a compact surface of type (g, n), n > 0, obtained by removing n disjoint disks from a closed surface of genus g. Assuming χ(Σ)<0, we show that on Σ, the set of flat metrics which have the same Laplacian spectrum of Dirichlet boundary condition is compact in the C^\infty topology. This isospectral compactness extends the result of Osgood, Phillips, and Sarnak \cite{OPS3} for type (0,n) surfaces, whose examples include bounded plane domains. Our main ingredients are as following. We first show that the determinant of the Laplacian is a proper function on the moduli space of geodesically …
We study the eta invariants of Dirac operators and the regularized determinants of Dirac Laplacians over hyperbolic manifolds with cusps. We follow Werner M"uller and use relative traces to define these spectral invariants. We show the regularity of eta and zeta functions at s=0. The Selberg trace formula and the detailed analysis of the unipotent terms give the relation between the eta invariant and the Selberg zeta function of odd type. This allows us to show the vanishing of the unipotent contribution. We show that the eta invariant and the Selberg zeta function of odd type satisfy certain …
The Hurwitz space is the moduli space of pairs $(X,f)$ where $X$ is a compact Riemann surface and $f$ is a meromorphic function on $X$. We study the Laplace operator $Δ^{|df|^2}$ of the flat singular Riemannian manifold $(X,|df|^2)$. We define a regularized determinant for $Δ^{|df|^2}$ and study it as a functional on the Hurwitz space. We prove that this functional is related to a system of PDE which admits explicit integration. This leads to an explicit expression for the determinant of the Laplace operator in terms of the basic objects on the underlying Riemann surface (the prime form, theta…
Let $\mathsf m$ be any conical (or smooth) metric of finite volume on the Riemann sphere $\Bbb CP^1$. On a compact Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g$ consider a meromorphic funciton $f: X\to {\Bbb C}P^1$ such that all poles and critical points of $f$ are simple and no critical value of $f$ coincides with a conical singularity of $\mathsf m$ or $\{\infty\}$. The pullback $f^*\mathsf m$ of $\mathsf m$ under $f$ has conical singularities of angles $4π$ at the critical points of $f$ and other conical singularities that are the preimages of those of $\mathsf m$. We study the $ζ$-regularized determina…
The infinite matrix `Schwartz' group $G^{-\infty}$ is a classifying group for odd K-theory and carries Chern classes in each odd dimension, generating the cohomology. These classes are closely related to the Fredholm determinant on $G^{-\infty}.$ We show that while the higher (even, Schwartz) loop groups of $G^{-\infty},$ again classifying for odd K-theory, do \emph{not} carry multiplicative determinants generating the first Chern class, `dressed' extensions, corresponding to a star product, do carry such functions. We use these to discuss Bott periodicity for the determinant bundle and the et…
We give a complete description of differential operators generating a given bracket. In particular we consider the case of Jacobi-type identities for odd operators and brackets. This is related with homotopy algebras using the derived bracket construction. (Based on a talk at XXII Workshop on Geometric Methods in Physics at Bialowieza)
Let $X$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus $g\geq 2$ equipped with flat conical metric $|Ω|$, where $Ω$ be a holomorphic quadratic differential on $X$ with $4g-4$ simple zeroes. Let $K$ be the canonical line bundle on $X$. Introduce the Cauchy-Riemann operators $\bar \partial$ and $\partial$ acting on sections of holomorphic line bundles over $X$ ($K^2$ in the definition of $Δ^{(2)}_{|Ω|}$ below) and, respectively, anti-holomorphic line bundles ($\bar { K}^{-1}$ below). Consider the Laplace operator $Δ^{(2)}_{|Ω|}:=|Ω| \partial |Ω|^{-2}\bar\partial$ acting in the Hilbert space of square int…
It is shown that in a tower of coverings the regularized determinant of a generalized Laplacian converges to the $L^2$-determinant. This shows generic nontriviality of analytic torsion or regularized determinants since the $L^2$-counterparts are easier to compute. We further have an "Euler product expansion" for regularized determinants in terms of equivariant $L^2$-determinants.
We study the cohomology of the complexes of differential, integral and pseudo forms on odd symplectic manifolds taking the wedge product with the symplectic form as differential. We show that the cohomology classes are in correspondence with inequivalent Lagrangian submanifolds and that they all define semidensities on them. Further, we introduce new operators that move from one Lagragian submanifold to another and we investigate their relation with the so-called picture changing operators for the de Rham differential. Finally, we prove the isomorphism between the cohomology of the de Rham dif…
A second order self-adjoint operator $Δ=S\partial^2+U$ is uniquely defined by its principal symbol $S$ and potential $U$ if it acts on half-densities. We analyse the potential $U$ as a compensating field (gauge field) in the sense that it compensates the action of coordinate transformations on the second derivatives in the same way as an affine connection compensates the action of coordinate transformations on first derivatives in the first order operator, a covariant derivative, $\nabla=\partial+Γ$. Usually a potential $U$ is derived from other geometrical constructions such as a volume form,…
We construct continuously parametrised families of conformally invariant boundary operators on densities. These may also be viewed as conformally covariant boundary operators on functions and generalise to higher orders the first-order conformal Robin operator and an analogous third-order operator of Chang-Qing. Our families include operators of critical order on odd-dimensional boundaries. Combined with the (conformal Laplacian power) GJMS operators, a suitable selection of the boundary operators yields formally self-adjoint elliptic conformal boundary problems. Working on a conformal manifol…
The functional determinants of the GJMS scalar operators, P_{2k}, on even-dimensional spheres are computed via Barnes multiple gamma functions relying on the numerical availability of the digamma function. For the critical k=d/2 case, it is necessary to calculate the Stirling moduli. The multiplicative anomalies are given as odd polynomials in $k$ and it is emphasised that that the Dirichlet--to--Robin factorisation, P_{2l+1}, gives the same results as P_{2k} if k=l+1/2.The results are presented as graphs and show a series of extrema in the effective action as k is varied in the reals. For odd…
The conformal anomalies and functional determinants of the Branson--GJMS operators, P_{2k}, on the d-dimensional sphere are evaluated in explicit terms for any d and k such that k < d/2+1 (if d is even). The determinants are given in terms of multiple gamma functions and a rational multiplicative anomaly, which vanishes for odd d. Taking the mode system on the sphere as the union of Neumann and Dirichlet ones on the hemisphere is a basic part of the method and leads to a heuristic explanation of the non--existence of `super--critical' operators, 2k>d for even d. Significant use is made of the …
We study extremal properties of the determinant of Friederichs selfadjoint Laplacian on the Euclidean isosceles triangle envelopes of fixed area as a function of angles. Small-angle asymptotics show that the determinant grows without any bound as an angle of triangle envelope goes to zero. We prove that the equilateral triangle envelope (the most symmetrical geometry) always gives rise to a critical point of the determinant and find the critical value. Moreover, if the area of envelopes is not too large, then the determinant achieves its absolute minimum only on the equilateral triangle envelo…
