A Rigorous Construction of the Supersymmetric Path Integral Associated to a Compact Spin Manifold

Abstract

We give a rigorous construction of the path integral in N=1/2 supersymmetry as an integral map for differential forms on the loop space of a compact spin manifold. It is defined on the space of differential forms which can be represented by extended iterated integrals in the sense of Chen and Getzler-Jones-Petrack. Via the iterated integral map, we compare our path integral to the non-commutative loop space Chern character of Güneysu and the second author. Our theory provides a rigorous background to various formal proofs of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem using supersymmetric path integrals, as investigated by Alvarez-Gaumé, Atiyah, Bismut and Witten.

Major revision: Moved parts to 1709.10028; added comparison theorem with Chern character of 1901.04721; several parts rewritten