Two-cocycle twists and Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index theory

Abstract

We construct eta- and rho-invariants for Dirac operators, on the universal covering of a closed manifold, that are invariant under the projective action associated to a 2-cocycle of the fundamental group. We prove an Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index theorem in this setting, as well as its higher generalization. Applications concern the classification of positive scalar curvature metrics on closed spin manifolds. We also investigate the properties of these twisted invariants for the signature operator and the relation to the higher invariants.