Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / iii / Paper 18 / 5 / b / Solution

The Kähler form and the Hermitian metric give the $L^2$ inner product on vector-bundle-valued differential forms, using volume ${\omega }^n/n!$. Define the formal adjoint ${\bar{\partial }}_E^{\ast }$ and the elliptic, self-adjoint, nonnegative Dolbeault LaplacianIts harmonic space isThe equality follows from $⟨{\Delta }_E^{\prime \prime }\alpha ,\alpha ⟩=\Vert {\bar{\partial }}_E\alpha {\Vert }^2+\Vert {\bar{\partial }}_E^{\ast }\alpha {\Vert }^2$. On compact $X$, the bundle-valued Dolbeault Hodge decomposition states that this space is finite dimensional and thatThe sum is orthogonal for the $L^2$ inner product and all summands here consist of smooth forms. Every Dolbeault cohomology class has a unique harmonic representative, giving $H_{\bar{\partial }}^{p,q}(X,E)\cong {\mathcal{H}}^{p,q}(X,E)$ and, by the Dolbeault theorem, the corresponding sheaf cohomology isomorphism. This is a decomposition for ${\bar{\partial }}_E$, whose square is zero; it does not require the full Chern connection to be flat.