Heat determinant on manifolds (Q271801)

The authors introduce a functional \(K(t)\) constructed entirely from the heat kernel and its dual of a Laplace-type partial differential operator on a compact \(n\)-dimensional manifold without boundary. They give an asymptotic expansion of \(K(t)\) with respect to \(n\) as \(t\) goes to \(0\). The paper contains extensive calculations for several low-order terms of the asymptotic expansion.