Cycle pairings and the heat equation (Q2367223)

The author studies the construction and computation of certain real- valued linking pairings \(\langle A,B\rangle\) of cycles \(A\), \(B\) in a compact oriented manifold \(M\) with Riemannian metric. He also shows that \(\langle A,B\rangle\) can also be constructed by using the heat kernel \(K(x,y,t)\), i.e., the kernel of the heat operator \(e^{-\Delta t}\) where \(\Delta\) is the Laplacian on differential forms on \(M\) (and \(t\) is real and \(>0\)).