Spectral geometry on manifolds with fibred boundary metrics II: heat kernel asymptotics

In this paper we continue the analysis of spectral problems in the setting of complete manifolds with fibred boundary metrics, also referred to as $\phi$-metrics, as initiated in our previous work. We consider the Hodge Laplacian for a $\phi$-metric and construct the corresponding heat kernel as a polyhomogeneous conormal distribution on an appropriate manifold with corners. Our discussion is a generalization of an earlier work by Albin and Sher, and provides a fundamental first step towards analysis of Ray-Singer torsion, eta-invariants and index theorems in the setting.