Geometric torsions and invariants of manifolds with triangulated boundary

Abstract

Geometric torsions are torsions of acyclic complexes of vector spaces which consist of differentials of geometric quantities assigned to the elements of a manifold triangulation. We use geometric torsions to construct invariants for a manifold with a triangulated boundary. These invariants can be naturally united in a vector, and a change of the boundary triangulation corresponds to a linear transformation of this vector. Moreover, when two manifolds are glued by their common boundary, these vectors undergo scalar multiplication, i.e., they work according to M. Atiyah's axioms for a topological quantum field theory.

18 pages, 4 figures