Enlargeability, foliations, and positive scalar curvature

We extend the deep and important results of Lichnerowicz, Connes, and Gromov-Lawson which relate geometry and characteristic numbers to the existence and non-existence of metrics of positive scalar curvature (PSC). In particular, we show: that a spin foliation with Hausdorff homotopy groupoid of an enlargeable manifold admits no PSC metric; that any metric of PSC on such a foliation is bounded by a multiple of the reciprocal of the foliation K-area of the ambient manifold; and that Connes' vanishing theorem for characteristic numbers of PSC foliations extends to a vanishing theorem for Haefliger cohomology classes.Comment: To appear in Inventiones Mathematicae. We have made a minor editing chang

An interesting example for spectral invariants

In "Illinois J. of Math. {\bf 38} (1994) 653--678", the heat operator of a Bismut superconnection for a family of generalized Dirac operators is defined along the leaves of a foliation with Hausdorff groupoid. The Novikov-Shubin invariants of the Dirac operators were assumed greater than three times the codimension of the foliation. It was then showed that the associated heat operator converges to the Chern character of the index bundle of the operator. In "J. K-Theory {\bf 1} (2008) 305--356", we improved this result by reducing the requirement on the Novikov-Shubin invariants to one half of the codimension. In this paper, we construct examples which show that this is the best possible result.Comment: Third author added. Some typos corrected and some material added. Appeared in Journal of K Theory, Volume 13, in 2014, pages 305 to 31

Gerbes, simplicial forms and invariants for families of foliated bundles

The notion of a gerbe with connection is conveniently reformulated in terms of the simplicial deRham complex. In particular the usual Chern-Weil and Chern-Simons theory is well adapted to this framework and rather easily gives rise to `characteristic gerbes' associated to families of bundles and connections. In turn this gives invariants for families of foliated bundles. A special case is the Quillen line bundle associated to families of flat SU(2)-bundlesComment: 28 page

Magnetized Non-linear Thin Shell Instability: Numerical Studies in 2D

We revisit the analysis of the Non-linear Thin Shell Instability (NTSI) numerically, including magnetic fields. The magnetic tension force is expected to work against the main driver of the NTSI -- namely transverse momentum transport. However, depending on the field strength and orientation, the instability may grow. For fields aligned with the inflow, we find that the NTSI is suppressed only when the Alfv\'en speed surpasses the (supersonic) velocities generated along the collision interface. Even for fields perpendicular to the inflow, which are the most effective at preventing the NTSI from developing, internal structures form within the expanding slab interface, probably leading to fragmentation in the presence of self-gravity or thermal instabilities. High Reynolds numbers result in local turbulence within the perturbed slab, which in turn triggers reconnection and dissipation of the excess magnetic flux. We find that when the magnetic field is initially aligned with the flow, there exists a (weak) correlation between field strength and gas density. However, for transverse fields, this correlation essentially vanishes. In light of these results, our general conclusion is that instabilities are unlikely to be erased unless the magnetic energy in clouds is much larger than the turbulent energy. Finally, while our study is motivated by the scenario of molecular cloud formation in colliding flows, our results span a larger range of applicability, from supernovae shells to colliding stellar winds.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figures, some of them at low resolution. Submitted to ApJ, comments welcom

Higher relative index theorems for foliations

In this paper we solve the general case of the cohomological relative index problem for foliations of non-compact manifolds. In particular, we significantly generalize the groundbreaking results of Gromov and Lawson, [GL83], to Dirac operators defined along the leaves of foliations of non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds, by involving all the terms of the Connes-Chern character, especially the higher order terms in Haefliger cohomology. The zero-th order term corresponding to holonomy invariant measures was carried out in [BH21] and becomes a special case of our main results here. In particular, for two leafwise Dirac operators on two foliated manifolds which agree near infinity, we define a relative topological index and the Connes-Chern character of a relative analytic index, both being in relative Haefliger cohomology. We show that these are equal. This invariant can be paired with closed holonomy invariant currents (which agree near infinity) to produce higher relative scalar invariants. When we relate these invariants to the leafwise index bundles, we restrict to Riemannian foliations on manifolds of sub-exponential growth. This allows us {to prove a higher relative index bundle theorem}, extending the classical index bundle theorem of [BH08]. Finally, we construct examples of foliations and use these invariants to prove that their spaces of leafwise positive scalar curvature metrics have infinitely many path-connected components, completely new results which are not available from [BH21]. In particular, these results confirm the well-known idea that important geometric information of foliations is embodied in the higher terms of the A-hat genus