Building on the Atiyah--Singer holomorphic Lefschetz fixed-point theorem, we define ramification modules associated to the fixed loci of a finite group acting on a compact complex manifold. This allows us to generalize the Chevalley--Weil formula for compact Riemann surfaces to higher dimensions. More precisely, let
G be a finite group acting on a compact complex manifold
X, and let
E be a
G-equivariant locally free sheaf on
X. Then, in the representation ring
R(G)Q, we have
χG(X,E):=i=0∑dimX(−1)i[Hi(X,E)]=∣G∣1χ(X,E)[C[G]]+Z∑Γ(E)Z where
Z runs over all connected components of the fixed-point sets
Xg for
g∈G, and each
Γ(E)Z∈R(X)Q, called the \emph{ramification module} at
Z, depends only on the restriction
E∣Z and the normal bundle
NZ/X as
GZ-equivariant bundles. We illustrate the computation of
Γ(E)Z in several special cases and provide a detailed example for faithful actions of
G≅(Z/2Z)n on a compact complex surface.