We show that the first Johnson subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface  of genus greater than 1 acts ergodically on the moduli space of representations of π1() in SU2. Our proof relies on a local description of the latter space around the trivial representation and on the Taylor expansion of trace functions.

We introduce a gauge-theoretic integer valued lift of the Rohlin invariant of a smooth 4-manifold X with the homology of S1×S3. The invariant has two terms: one is a count of solutions to the Seiberg–Witten equations on X, and the other is essentially the index of the Dirac operator on a non-compact manifold with end modeled on the infinite cyclic cover of X. Each term is metric (and perturbation) dependent, and we show that these dependencies cancel as the metric and perturbation vary in a generic 1-parameter family.

We construct 2-surfaces of prescribed mean curvature in 3manifolds carrying asymptotically flat initial data for an isolated gravitating system with rather general decay conditions. The surfaces in question form a regular foliation of the asymptotic region of such a manifold. We recover physically relevant data, especially the ADM-momentum, from the geometry of the foliation. For a given set of data (M, g,K), with a three dimensional manifoldM, its Riemannian metric g, and the second fundamental form K in the surrounding four dimensional Lorentz space time manifold, the equation we solve is H+P = const or H−P = const. Here H is the mean curvature, and P = trK is the 2-trace of K along the solution surface. This is a degenerate elliptic equation for the position of the surface. It prescribes the mean curvature anisotropically, since P depends on the direction of the normal.

In this note the fractional analytic index, for a projective elliptic operator associated to an Azumaya bundle, of [5] is related to the equivariant index of [1, 6] for an associated transversally elliptic operator.

A well-known result on pseudodifferential operators states that the noncommutative residue (Wodzicki residue) of a zero-order pseudodifferential projection on a closed manifold vanishes. This statement is non-local and implies the regularity of the eta invariant at zero of Dirac type operators. We prove that in the odd dimensional case an analogous statement holds for the algebra of projective pseudodifferential operators, i.e., the noncommutative residue of a projective pseudodifferential projection vanishes. Our strategy of proof also simplifies the argument in the classical setting. We show that the noncommutative residue factors to a map from the twisted K-theory of the co-sphere bundle and then use arguments from twisted K-theory to reduce this question to a known model case. It can then be verified by local computations that this map vanishes in odd dimensions.