Algebraic aspects of the Hirzebruch signature operator and applications to transitive Lie algebroids

Abstract

The index of the classical Hirzebruch signature operator on a manifold M is equal to the signature of the manifold. The examples of Lusztig ((10), 1972) and Gromov ((4), 1985) present the Hirzebruch signature operator for the cohomology (of a manifold) with coefficients in a flat symmetric or symplectic vector bundle. In (6), we gave a signature operator for the cohomology of transitive Lie algebroids. In this paper, firstly, we present a general approach to the signature operator, and the above four examples become special cases of a single general theorem. Secondly, due to the spectral sequence point of view on the signature of the cohomology algebra of certain filtered DG-algebras, it turns out that the Lusztig and Gromov examples are important in the study of the signature of a Lie algebroid. Namely, under some natural and simple regularity assumptions on the DG-algebra with a decreasing filtration for which the second term lives in a finite rectangle, the signature of the second term of the spectral sequence is equal to the signature of the DG algebra. Considering the Hirzebruch-Serre spectral sequence for a transitive Lie algebroid A over a compact oriented manifold for which the top group of the real cohomology of A is nontrivial, we see that the second term is just identical to the Lusztig or Gromov example (depending on the dimension). Thus, we have a second signature operator for Lie algebroids.