SINGULAR REDUCTION AND QUANTIZATION

Consider a compact prequantizable symplectic manifold M on which a compact Lie group G acts in a Hamiltonian fashion. The “quantization commutes with reduction” theorem asserts that the G-invariant part of the equivariant index of M is equal to the Riemann–Roch number of the symplectic quotient of M, provided the quotient is nonsingular. We extend this result to singular symplectic quotients, using partial desingularizations of the symplectic quotient to define its Riemann–Roch number. By similar methods we also compute multiplicities for the equivariant index of the dual of a prequantum bundle, and furthermore show that the arithmetic genus of a Hamiltonian G-manifold is invariant under symplectic reduction.