Eta and rho invariants on manifolds with edges

Abstract

We establish existence of eta-invariants as well as of the Atiyah–Patodi–Singer and the Cheeger–Gromov rho-invariants for a class of Dirac operators on an incomplete edge space. Our analysis applies in particular to the signature and the spin Dirac operator. We derive an analogue of the Atiyah–Patodi–Singer index theorem for incomplete edge spaces and their non-compact infinite Galois coverings with edge singular boundary. Our arguments are based on the microlocal analysis of the heat kernel asymptotics associated to the Dirac laplacian of an incomplete edge metric. As an application, we discuss stability results for the two rho-invariants we have defined.