Family index for Fredholm extensions of semi-Fredholm operators

Abstract

This paper is devoted to an abstract analogue of elliptic boundary value problems, namely, Fredholm realizations of semi-Fredholm operators in a Hilbert space. Such a realization is determined by an abstract boundary condition, which is a subspace in the space of abstract boundary values. We find the $K^0$ index of a family of such abstract boundary value problems, or the $K^1$ index in the self-adjoint case, in terms of the corresponding family of abstract boundary conditions. Our approach is based on passing from a Fredholm operator to its graph. The graph forms a Fredholm pair with the horizontal subspace, and we prove the index formula by deforming the horizontal subspace instead of the operator.

v2: 44 pages, Sections 15 and 16 are added