Joint torsion of several commuting operators

We introduce the notion of joint torsion for several commuting operators satisfying a Fredholm condition. This new secondary invariant takes values in the group of invertibles of a field. It is constructed by comparing determinants associated with different filtrations of a Koszul complex. Our notion of joint torsion generalize the Carey-Pincus joint torsion of a pair of commuting Fredholm operators. As an example, under more restrictive invertibility assumptions, we show that the joint torsion recovers the multiplicative Lefschetz numbers. Furthermore, in the case of Toeplitz operators over the polydisc we provide a link between the joint torsion and the Cauchy integral formula. We will also consider the algebraic properties of the joint torsion. They include a cocycle property, a triviality property and a multiplicativity property. The proof of these results relies on a quite general comparison theorem for vertical and horizontal torsion isomorphisms associated with certain diagrams of chain complexes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.