English

The Callias Index Formula Revisited

Analysis of PDEs 2016-01-19 v2

Abstract

We revisit the Callias index formula for Dirac-type operators LL in odd space dimension nn, and prove that \begin{align} \text{ind} \, (L) =\bigg(\frac{i}{8\pi}\bigg)^{\frac{n-1}{2}}\frac{1}{2(\frac{n-1}{2})!} \lim_{\Lambda \to\infty}\frac{1}{\Lambda }\sum_{i_{1},\dots,i_{n} = 1}^n \varepsilon_{i_{1}\dots i_{n}} \int_{\Lambda S_{n-1}}\text{tr}_{\mathbb{C}^d}\, (U(x)(\partial_{i_{1}}U)(x)\dots (\partial_{i_{n-1}}U)(x)) x_{i_{n}}\, d^{n-1} \sigma(x), \, (*) \end{align} where U(x)=sgn(Φ(x))U(x) = \text{sgn} \,(\Phi(x)) and LL in L2(Rn)2n^dL^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{n})^{2^{\widehat n}d} is of the form L=Q+Φ, L= \mathcal{Q} + \Phi, where Q=(j=1nγj,nj)Id, \mathcal{Q} = \bigg(\sum_{j=1}^{n}\gamma_{j,n}\partial_{j}\bigg) I_d, with γj,n\gamma_{j,n} elements of the Euclidean Dirac algebra, and n=2n^n=2{\widehat n} or n=2n^+1n=2{\widehat n}+1. Here Φ\Phi is assumed to satisfy the following conditions: \begin{align} & \Phi\in C_{b}^{2}\big(\mathbb{R}^{n};\mathbb{C}^{d\times d}\big), \quad d \in \mathbb{N}, \\ & \Phi(x)=\Phi(x)^{*}, \end{align} there exists c>0c>0, R0R\geq0 such that Φ(x)cId,xRn\B(0,R), |\Phi(x)|\geq c I_d, \quad x\in\mathbb{R}^{n}\backslash B(0,R), and there exists ε>1/2\varepsilon> 1/2 such that for all αN0n\alpha\in\mathbb{N}_{0}^{n}, α<3|\alpha|<3, there is κ>0\kappa>0 such that (αΦ)(x){κ(1+x)1,α=1,κ(1+x)1ε,α=2,xRn. \|(\partial^{\alpha}\Phi)(x)\|\leq \begin{cases} \kappa (1+|x|)^{-1}, & |\alpha|=1,\\ \kappa (1+ |x|)^{-1-\varepsilon}, & |\alpha|=2, \end{cases}\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^{n}. These conditions on Φ\Phi render LL a Fredholm operator, and appear to be the most general conditions known to date for which Callias' index formula has been derived. Generalizations of the index formula ()(*) to certain classes of non-Fredholm operators LL invoking the (generalized) Witten index are also discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.05144,
  title  = {The Callias Index Formula Revisited},
  author = {Fritz Gesztesy and Marcus Waurick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.05144},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

135 pages, we extended section 3 and removed a number of typos throughout this manuscript