Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

D. Bucur - E. Martinet - M. Nahon

Sharp inequalities for Neumann eigenvalues on the sphere

created by bucur on 25 Aug 2022

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Submitted Paper

Inserted: 25 aug 2022
Last Updated: 25 aug 2022

Year: 2022

ArXiv: 2208.11413 PDF

Abstract:

We prove that the second nontrivial Neumann eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the unit sphere ${\mathbb S}^n \subseteq {\mathbb R}^{n+1}$ is maximized by the union of two disjoint, equal, geodesic balls among all subsets of ${\mathbb S}^n$ of prescribed volume. In fact, the result holds in a stronger version, involving the harmonic mean of the eigenvalues of order $2$ to $n$, and extends to densities. A (surprising) consequence occurs on the maximality of a geodesic ball for the first nontrivial eigenvalue under the volume constraint: the hemisphere inclusion condition of the Ashbaugh-Benguria result can be relaxed to a weaker one, namely empty intersection with a geodesic ball of the prescribed volume. Although we do not prove that this last inclusion result is sharp, for a mass less than the half of the sphere, we numerically identify a density with higher first eigenvalue than the corresponding geodesic ball and with support equal to the full sphere ${\mathbb S}^2$.