%0 Journal Article
%T A topological method to compute spectral flow
%A Dave Auckly
%J Mathematics
%D 1997
%I arXiv
%X This paper describes a topological method to compute the spectral flow of a family of twisted Dirac operators, it includes two detailed examples. Briefly, a formula of Atiyah, Patodi and Singer expresses the spectral flow in terms of Chern-Simons invariants and rho invariants. The first step is to construct a flat cobordism to a new bigger 3-manifold. The advantage of the new connection is that it is in the path component of a reducible connection. The second step is to calculate the effect of these operations on the invariants. The final step is an application of the G-signature theorem to compute the invariants.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9712222v1