Index theory of geometric Fredholm operators on varieties with isolated singularities

It sometimes happens that geometric elliptic differential operators on a noncompact Riemannian manifold are Fredholm. The smooth parts of singular algebraic varieties provide examples of complete and incomplete manifolds where this can happen. The indices of such operators often provide topological or geometric information about the singular variety. This paper shows that the operators of the title represent K homology elements and solves the index problem for these operators by exhibiting equivalent K homology cycles in topological form.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMS-8501513.