A heat trace anomaly on polygons

Abstract

Let $\Omega_0$ be a polygon in $\RR^2$, or more generally a compact surface with piecewise smooth boundary and corners. Suppose that $\Omega_\e$ is a family of surfaces with $\calC^\infty$ boundary which converges to $\Omega_0$ smoothly away from the corners, and in a precise way at the vertices to be described in the paper. Fedosov \cite{Fe}, Kac \cite{K} and McKean-Singer \cite{MS} recognized that certain heat trace coefficients, in particular the coefficient of $t^0$, are not continuous as $\e \searrow 0$. We describe this anomaly using renormalized heat invariants of an auxiliary smooth domain $Z$ which models the corner formation. The result applies both for Dirichlet and Neumann conditions. We also include a discussion of what one might expect in higher dimensions.