Heat Trace and Functional Determinant in One Dimension

Abstract

We study the spectral properties of the Laplace type operator on the circle. We discuss various approximations for the heat trace, the zeta function and the zeta-regularized determinant. We obtain a differential equation for the heat kernel diagonal and a recursive system for the diagonal heat kernel coefficients, which enables us to find closed approximate formulas for the heat trace and the functional determinant which become exact in the limit of infinite radius. The relation to the generalized KdV hierarchy is discussed as well.