Heat kernel expansions in vector bundles

Let M be a complete connected smooth (compact) Riemannian manifold of dimension n. Let Π:V→M be a smooth vector bundle over M. Let be a second order differential operator on M, where Δ is a Laplace-Type operator on the sections of the vector bundle V and b a smooth vector field on M. Let k_t(−,−) be the heat kernel of V relative to L. In this paper we will derive an exact and an asymptotic expansion for k_t(x,y₀) where y₀ is the center of normal coordinates defined on M, x is a point in the normal neighborhood centered at y₀. The leading coefficients of the expansion are then computed at x=y₀ in terms of the linear and quadratic Riemannian curvature invariants of the Riemannian manifold M, of the vector bundle V, and of the vector bundle section ? and its derivatives.We end by comparing our results with those of previous authors (I. Avramidi, P. Gilkey, and McKean-Singer).