Bott Periodicity for Fibred Cusp Operators

In the framework of fibred cusp operators on a manifold X associated to a boundary fibration Φ : ∂X → Y , the homotopy groups of the space G−∞ Φ (X;E) of invertible smoothing perturbations of the identity are computed in terms of the K-theory of T ∗Y . It is shown that there is a periodicity, namely the odd and the even homotopy groups are isomorphic among themselves. To obtain this result, one of the important steps is the description of the index of a Fredholm smoothing perturbation of the identity in terms of an associated K-class in K c (T ∗Y ). Thesis Supervisor: Richard B. Melrose Title: Professor of Mathematics