Let
$\eta $ be [-11pc] [-7pc]a closed real 1-form on a closed Riemannian n-manifold
$(M,g)$. Let
$d_z$,
$\delta _z$ and
$\Delta _z$ be the induced Witten’s type perturbations of the de Rham derivative and coderivative and the Laplacian, parametrized by
$z=\mu +i\nu \in \mathbb C$ (
$\mu ,\nu \in \mathbb {R}$,
$i=\sqrt {-1}$). Let
$\zeta (s,z)$ be the zeta function of
$s\in \mathbb {C}$, defined as the meromorphic extension of the function
$\zeta (s,z)=\operatorname {Str}({\eta \wedge }\,\delta _z\Delta _z^{-s})$ for
$\Re s\gg 0$. We prove that
$\zeta (s,z)$ is smooth at
$s=1$ and establish a formula for
$\zeta (1,z)$ in terms of the associated heat semigroup. For a class of Morse forms,
$\zeta (1,z)$ converges to some
$\mathbf {z}\in \mathbb {R}$ as
$\mu \to +\infty $, uniformly on
$\nu $. We describe
$\mathbf {z}$ in terms of the instantons of an auxiliary Smale gradient-like vector field X and the Mathai–Quillen current on
$TM$ defined by g. Any real 1-cohomology class has a representative
$\eta $ satisfying the hypothesis. If n is even, we can prescribe any real value for
$\mathbf {z}$ by perturbing g,
$\eta $ and X and achieve the same limit as
$\mu \to -\infty $. This is used to define and describe certain tempered distributions induced by g and
$\eta $. These distributions appear in another publication as contributions from the preserved leaves in a trace formula for simple foliated flows, giving a solution to a problem stated by C. Deninger.