Heat kernel asymptotics for real powers of Laplacians

Abstract

Abstract We describe the small-time heat kernel asymptotics of real powers $\operatorname {\Delta }^r$ , $r \in (0,1)$ of a non-negative self-adjoint generalized Laplacian $\operatorname {\Delta }$ acting on the sections of a Hermitian vector bundle $\mathcal {E}$ over a closed oriented manifold M. First, we treat separately the asymptotic on the diagonal of $M \times M$ and in a compact set away from it. Logarithmic terms appear only if n is odd and r is rational with even denominator. We prove the non-triviality of the coefficients appearing in the diagonal asymptotics, and also the non-locality of some of the coefficients. In the special case $r=1/2$ , we give a simultaneous formula by proving that the heat kernel of $\operatorname {\Delta }^{1/2}$ is a polyhomogeneous conormal section in $\mathcal {E} \boxtimes \mathcal {E}^* $ on the standard blow-up space $\operatorname {M_{heat}}$ of the diagonal at time $t=0$ inside $[0,\infty )\times M \times M$ .