Degenerating Hermitian metrics and spectral geometry of the canonical bundle

Abstract: Let $(X,h)$ be a compact and irreducible Hermitian complex space of complex dimension $m$. In this paper we are interested in the Dolbeault operator acting on the space of $L^2$ sections of the canonical bundle of $reg(X)$, the regular part of $X$. More precisely let $\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}:L^2\Omega^{m,0}(reg(X),h)\rightarrow L^2\Omega^{m,1}(reg(X),h)$ be an arbitrarily fixed closed extension of $\overline{\partial}{m,0}:L^2\Omega^{m,0}(reg(X),h)\rightarrow L^2\Omega^{m,1}(reg(X),h)$ where the domain of the latter operator is $\Omega_c^{m,0}(reg(X))$. We establish various properties such as closed range of $\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}$, compactness of the inclusion $\mathcal{D}(\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0})\hookrightarrow L^2\Omega^{m,0}(reg(X),h)$ where $\mathcal{D}(\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0})$, the domain of $\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}$, is endowed with the corresponding graph norm, and discreteness of the spectrum of the associated Hodge-Kodaira Laplacian $\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}^*\circ \overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}$ with an estimate for the growth of its eigenvalues. Several corollaries such as trace class property for the heat operator associated to $\overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}^*\circ \overline{\mathfrak{d}}{m,0}$, with an estimate for its trace, are derived. Finally in the last part we provide several applications to the Hodge-Kodaira Laplacian in the setting of both compact irreducible Hermitian complex spaces with isolated singularities and complex projective surfaces.