A basic problem in geometry is to ?nd canonical metrics on smooth manifolds. Such metrics can be speci?ed, for instance, by curvature conditions or extremality properties, and are expected to contain basic information on the topology of the underlying manifold. Constant curvature metrics on surfaces are such canonical metrics. Their distinguished role is emphasized by classical uniformization theory. Amorerecentcharacterizationofthesemetrics describes them ascriticalpoints of the determinant functional for the Laplacian.The key tool here is Polyakov'sva- ationalformula for the determinant. In higher dimensions, however,it is necessary to further restrict the problem, for instance, to the search for canonical metrics in conformal classes. Here two metrics are considered to belong to the same conf- mal class if they di?er by a nowhere vanishing factor. A typical question in that direction is the Yamabe problem ([165]), which asks for constant scalar curvature metrics in conformal classes. In connection with the problem of understanding the structure of Polyakov type formulas for the determinants of conformally covariant di?erential operators in higher dimensions, Branson ([31]) discovered a remarkable curvature quantity which now is called Branson's Q-curvature. It is one of the main objects in this book.

The periodic orbits of the geodesic flow of compact locally symmetric spaces of negative curvature give rise to meromorphic zeta functions (generalized Selberg zeta functions, Ruelle zeta functions). The book treats various aspects of the idea to understand the analytical properties of these zeta functions on the basis of appropriate analogs of the Lefschetz fixed point formula in which the periodic orbits of the flow take the place of the fixed points. According to geometric quantization the Anosov foliations of the sphere bundle provide a natural source for the definition of the cohomological data in the Lefschetz formula. The Lefschetz formula method can be considered as a link between the automorphic approach (Selberg trace formula) and Ruelle's approach (transfer operators). It yields a uniform cohomological characterization of the zeros and poles of the zeta functions and a new understanding of the functional equations from an index theoretical point of view. The divisors of the Selberg zeta functions also admit characterizations in terms of harmonic currents on the sphere bundle which represent the cohomology classes in the Lefschetz formulas in the sense of a Hodge theory. The concept of harmonic currents to be used for that purpose is introduced here for the first time. Harmonic currents for the geodesic flow of a noncompact hyperbolic space with a compact convex core generalize the Patterson-Sullivan measure on the limit set and are responsible for the zeros and poles of the corresponding zeta function. The book describes the present state of the research in a new field on the cutting edge of global analysis, harmonic analysis and dynamical systems. It should be appealing notonly to the specialists on zeta functions which will find their object of favorite interest connected in new ways with index theory, geometric quantization methods, foliation theory and representation theory. There are many unsolved problems and the book hopefully promotes further progress along the lines indicated here.

Dynamical zeta functions are associated to dynamical systems with a countable set of periodic orbits. The dynamical zeta functions of the geodesic flow of lo cally symmetric spaces of rank one are known also as the generalized Selberg zeta functions. The present book is concerned with these zeta functions from a cohomological point of view. Originally, the Selberg zeta function appeared in the spectral theory of automorphic forms and were suggested by an analogy between Weil's explicit formula for the Riemann zeta function and Selberg's trace formula ( 261]). The purpose of the cohomological theory is to understand the analytical properties of the zeta functions on the basis of suitable analogs of the Lefschetz fixed point formula in which periodic orbits of the geodesic flow take the place of fixed points. This approach is parallel to Weil's idea to analyze the zeta functions of pro jective algebraic varieties over finite fields on the basis of suitable versions of the Lefschetz fixed point formula. The Lefschetz formula formalism shows that the divisors of the rational Hassc-Wcil zeta functions are determined by the spectra of Frobenius operators on l-adic cohomology."