Short-time asymptotics of a rigorous path integral for N = 1 supersymmetric quantum mechanics on a Riemannian manifold

Abstract

Following Feynman's prescription for constructing a path integral representation of the propagator of a quantum theory, a short-time approximation to the propagator for imaginary-time, N = 1 supersymmetric quantum mechanics on a compact, even-dimensional Riemannian manifold is constructed. The path integral is interpreted as the limit of products, determined by a partition of a finite time interval, of this approximate propagator. The limit under refinements of the partition is shown to converge uniformly to the heat kernel for the Laplace-de Rham operator on forms. A version of the steepest descent approximation to the path integral is obtained, and shown to give the expected short-time behavior of the supertrace of the heat kernel.