Abstract
While harmonic analysis on domains in Euclidean space is a long established field, as seen in §1.8, the study of the Laplace operator on Riemannian manifolds (together with the heat and wave equations, and the spectrum and eigenfunctions) seems to have begun only quite recently. Some of the earliest accomplishments were the computation of the spectrum of ℂℙn (see §§9.5.4) and Lichnerowicz’s inequality for the first eigenvalue (see §§9.10.1). The first paper to address the Laplacian on general Riemannian manifolds was Minakshisundaram & Pleijel 1949 [930]. More narrowly, Maaß 1949 [899] investigated the Laplacian on Riemann surfaces. Also, one can turn to Avakumović 1956 [90]. But a spark was lit in the 1960’s when Leon Green asked if a Riemannian manifold was determined by its spectrum (the complete set of eigenvalues of the Laplacian).
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For example, theorems 338 on page 588 and 405 on page 665; also see §9.14.
Since the manifold M is assumed to be connected, the multiplicity of λ0 is exactly one.
It is harder to say than to see.
Recall that the length spectrum of a plane domain is the set of lengths of its periodic (billiard or light) trajectories.
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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Berger, M. (2003). Riemannian Manifolds as Quantum Mechanical Worlds: The Spectrum and Eigenfunctions of the Laplacian. In: A Panoramic View of Riemannian Geometry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18245-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18245-7_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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