English

Analytic torsion for twisted de Rham complexes

Differential Geometry 2011-10-03 v6 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We define analytic torsion for the twisted de Rham complex, consisting of the spaces of differential forms on a compact oriented Riemannian manifold X valued in a flat vector bundle E, with a differential given by a flat connection on E plus an odd-degree closed differential form H on X. The difficulty lies in the fact that the twisted de Rham complex is only Z_2-graded, and so the definition of analytic torsion in this case uses pseudo-differential operators and residue traces. We show that when dim X is odd, then the twisted analytic torsion is independent of the choice of metrics on X and E and of the representative H in the cohomology class of H. We define twisted analytic torsion in the context of generalized geometry and show that when H is a 3-form, the deformation H -> H - dB, where B is a 2-form on X, is equivalent to deforming a usual metric g to a generalized metric (g,B). We establish some basic functorial properties. When H is a top-degree form, we compute the torsion, define its simplicial counterpart and prove an analogue of the Cheeger-Muller Theorem. We also study the relationship of the analytic torsion for T-dual circle bundles with integral 3-form fluxes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0810.4204,
  title  = {Analytic torsion for twisted de Rham complexes},
  author = {Varghese Mathai and Siye Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.4204},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

24 pages LaTeX; corrections and additions; Keywords: Analytic torsion, twisted de Rham cohomology, generalized geometry, $T$-duality

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:34:05.819Z