The Chiral Index of the Fermionic Signature Operator

Abstract

We define an index of the fermionic signature operator on even-dimensional globally hyperbolic spin manifolds of finite lifetime. The invariance of the index under homotopies is studied. The definition is generalized to causal fermion systems with a chiral grading. We give examples of space-times and Dirac operators thereon for which our index is non-trivial.

21 pages, LaTeX, 3 figures, minor corrections (published version)