The singularities of the wave trace of the basic Laplacian of a Riemannian foliation

We apply techniques of microlocal analysis to the study of the transverse geometry of Riemannian foliations in order to analyze spectral invariants of the basic Laplacian acting on functions on a Riemannian foliation with a bundle-like metric. In particular, we consider the trace of the basic wave operator when the mean curvature form is basic. We extend the concept of basic functions to distributions and demonstrate the existence of the basic wave kernel. The singularities of the trace of this basic wave kernel occur at the lengths of certain geodesic arcs which are orthogonal to the closures of the leaves of the foliation. In cases when the foliation has regular closure, a complete representation of the trace of the basic wave kernel can be computed for t = 0. Otherwise, a partial trace formula over a certain set of lengths of well-behaved geodesic arcs is obtained. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.