On any compact Riemannian manifold $(M, g)$ of dimension $n$, the $L^2$-normalized eigenfunctions $\{ϕ_λ\}$ satisfy $||ϕ_λ||_{\infty} \leq C λ^{\frac{n-1}{2}}$ where $-Δϕ_λ = λ^2 ϕ_λ.$ The bound is sharp in the class of all $(M, g)$ since it is obtained by zonal spherical harmonics on the standard $n$-sphere $S^n$. But of course, it is not sharp for many Riemannian manifolds, e.g. flat tori $\R^n/Γ$. We say that $S^n$, but not $\R^n/Γ$, is a Riemannian manifold with maximal eigenfunction growth. The problem which motivates this paper is to determine the $(M, g)$ with maximal eigenfunction growth. Our main result is that such an $(M, g)$ must have a point $x$ where the set ${\mathcal L}_x$ of geodesic loops at $x$ has positive measure in $S^*_x M$. We show that if $(M, g)$ is real analytic, this puts topological restrictions on $M$, e.g. only $M = S^2$ (topologically) in dimension 2 can possess a real analytic metric of maximal eigenfunction growth. We further show that generic metrics on any $M$ fail to have maximal eigenfunction growth. In addition, we construct an example of $(M, g)$ for which ${\mathcal L}_x$ has positive measure for an open set of $x$ but which does not have maximal eigenfunction growth, thus disproving a naive converse to the main result.
We deal with eigenvalue problems for the Laplacian on noncompact Riemannian manifolds $M$ of finite volume. Sharp conditions ensuring $L^q(M)$ and $L^\infty (M)$ bounds for eigenfunctions are exhibited in terms of either the isoperimetric function or the isocapacitary function of $M$.
For $2\leq p<4$, we study the $L^p$ norms of restrictions of eigenfunctions of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on smooth compact $2$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. Burq, Gérard, and Tzvetkov \cite{BurqGerardTzvetkov2007restrictions}, and Hu \cite{Hu2009lp} found the eigenfunction estimates restricted to a curve with nonvanishing geodesic curvatures. We will explain how the proof of the known estimates helps us to consider the case where the given smooth compact Riemannian manifold has nonpositive sectional curvatures. For $p=4$, we will also obtain a logarithmic analogous estimate, by using a…
We obtain an improvement of the bilinear estimates of Burq, Gérard and Tzvetkov in the spirit of the refined Kakeya-Nikodym estimates of Blair and the second author. We do this by using microlocal techniques and a bilinear version of Hörmander's oscillatory integral theorem.
We study the relationship between $L^\infty$ growth of eigenfunctions and their $L^2$ concentration as measured by defect measures. In particular, we characterize the defect measures of any sequence of eigenfunctions with maximal $L^\infty$ growth, showing that they must be neither more concentrated nor more diffuse than the zonal harmonics. As a consequence, we obtain new proofs of results on the geometry manifolds with maximal eigenfunction growth obtained by Sogge--Zelditch, and Sogge--Toth--Zelditch.
We prove sharp upper and lower bounds for the nodal length of Steklov eigenfunctions on real-analytic Riemannian surfaces with boundary. The argument involves frequency function methods for harmonic functions in the interior of the surface as well as the construction of exponentially accurate approximations for the Steklov eigenfunctions near the boundary.
In this note we establish the large time non-negativity of the heat kernel for a class of elliptic differential operators on closed, Riemannian manifolds, and apply this result to a problem from conformal differential geometry.
We study the sharp doubling inequalities for the gradients and upper bounds for the critical sets of Dirichlet eigenfunctions on the boundary and in the interior of compact Riemannian manifolds. Most efforts are devoted to obtaining the sharp doubling inequalities for the gradients. New technique is developed to overcome the difficulties on the unavailability of the double manifold in obtaining doubling inequalities in smooth manifolds. The sharp upper bounds of critical sets in analytic Riemannian manifolds are consequences of the doubling inequalities.
We show that one can obtain improved $L^4$ geodesic restriction estimates for eigenfunctions on compact Riemannian surfaces with nonpositive curvature. We achieve this by adapting Sogge's strategy in proving improved critical $L^p$ estimates. We first combine the improved $L^2$ restriction estimate of Blair and Sogge and the classical improved $L^\infty$ estimate of Bérard to obtain an improved weak-type $L^4$ restriction estimate. We then upgrade this weak estimate to a strong one by using the improved Lorentz space estimate of Bak and Seeger. This estimate improves the $L^4$ restriction esti…
In the recent work arXiv:1311.3999, the authors proved that real analytic manifolds $(M, g)$ with maximal eigenfunction growth must have a self-focal point p whose first return map has an invariant L1 measure on $S^*_p M$. In this addendum we add a purely dynamical argument on circle maps to improve the conclusion to: all geodesics from p are smoothly closed.
Let (X,g) be a metrically complete, simply connected Riemannian manifold with bounded geometry and pinched negative curvature, i.e. there are constants a>b>0 such that -a^2<K<-b^2 for all sectional curvatures K. Here bounded geometry is used in the sense that all covariant derivatives of the Riemannian curvature tensor are bounded and the injectivity radius is uniformly bounded below by a positive constant. We show that there are no superexponentially decaying eigenfunctions of the Laplacian of g. We also show the analogous conclusion for other geometric operators, and prove a theorem with the…
We prove that the Cauchy data of Dirichlet or Neumann $Δ$- eigenfunctions of Riemannian manifolds with concave (diffractive) boundary can only achieve maximal sup norm bounds if there exists a self-focal point on the boundary, i.e. a point at which a positive measure of geodesics leaving the point return to the point. As an application, the Dirichlet or Neumann eigenfunctions of Riemannian manifolds with concave boundary and non-positive curvature never have eigenfunctions whose boundary traces achieve maximal sup norm bounds.
Let $(M,g)$ be an $n$-dimensional compact boudaryless Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature, then our conclusion is that we can give improved estimates for the $L^p$ norms of the restrictions of eigenfunctions to smooth submanifolds of dimension $k$, for $p>\dfrac{2n}{n-1}$ when $k=n-1$ and $p>2$ when $k\leq n-2$, compared to the general results of Burq, Gérard and Tzvetkov \cite{burq}. Earlier, Bérard \cite{Berard} gave the same improvement for the case when $p=\infty$, for compact Riemannian manifolds without conjugate points for $n=2$, or with nonpositive sectional curvat…
We show that any closed n-dimensional Riemannian manifold can be embedded by a map constructed from heat kernels at a certain time from a finite number of points. Both this time and this number can be bounded in terms of the dimension, a lower bound on the Ricci curvature, the injectivity radius and the volume. It follows that the manifold can be embedded by a finite number of eigenfunctions of the Laplace operator. Again, this number only depends on the geometric bounds and the dimension. In addition, both maps can be made arbitrarily close to an isometry. In the appendix, we derive quantitat…
Let $e_ł(x)$ be an eigenfunction with respect to the Laplace-Beltrami operator $Δ_M$ on a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ without boundary: $Δ_M e_ł=ł^2 e_ł$. We show the following gradient estimate of $e_ł$: for every $ł\geq 1$, there holds $ł\|e_ł\|_\infty/C\leq \|\nabla e_ł\|_\infty\leq Cł\|e_ł\|_\infty$, where $C$ is a positive constant depending only on $M$.
We consider the lower bound of nodal sets of Steklov eigenfunctions on smooth Riemannian manifolds with boundary--the eigenfunctions of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map. Let $N_λ$ be its nodal set. Assume that zero is a regular value of Steklov eigenfunctions. We show that $$H^{n-1}(N_λ)\geq Cλ^{\frac{3-n}{2}}$$ for some positive constant $C$ depending only on the manifold.
This paper concerns the concentration of Dirichlet eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a compact two-dimensional Riemannian manifold with strictly geodesically concave boundary. We link three inequalities which bound the concentration in different ways. We also prove one of these inequalities, which bounds the L^p norms of the restrictions of eigenfunctions to broken geodesics.
We show that for a smooth closed curve $γ$ on a compact Riemannian surface without boundary, the inner product of two eigenfunctions $e_λ$ and $e_μ$ restricted to $γ$, $|\int e_λ\overline{e_μ}\,ds|$, is bounded by $\min\{λ^\frac12,μ^\frac12\}$. Furthermore, given $0<c<1$, if $0<μ<cλ$, we prove that $\int e_λ\overline{e_μ}\,ds=O(μ^\frac14)$, which is sharp on the sphere $S^2$. These bounds unify the period integral estimates and the $L^2$-restriction estimates in an explicit way. Using a similar argument, we also show that the $ν$-th order Fourier coefficient of $e_λ$ over $γ$ is uniformly boun…
We give a new and self-contained proof of a generic version of the (former) Helgason conjecture. It says that for generic spectral parameters the Poisson transform is a topological isomorphism, with the inverse given by a boundary value map. Following Oshima's approach to a simplified definition of boundary values, and using the earlier work of Baouendi and Goulaouic on Fuchsian type equations, our proof is along the lines of our earlier work in the rank one distributional case, and works for both the hyperfunction and the distribution setting.
We show that one can obtain logarithmic improvements of $L^2$ geodesic restriction estimates for eigenfunctions on 3-dimensional compact Riemannian manifolds with constant negative curvature. We obtain a $(\logλ)^{-\frac12}$ gain for the $L^2$-restriction bounds, which improves the corresponding bounds of Burq, Gérard and Tzvetkov, Hu, Chen and Sogge. We achieve this by adapting the approaches developed by Chen and Sogge, Blair and Sogge, Xi and the author. We derive an explicit formula for the wave kernel on 3D hyperbolic space, which improves the kernel estimates from the Hadamard parametrix…
We study the size of nodal sets of Laplacian eigenfunctions on compact Riemannian manifolds without boundary and recover the currently optimal lower bound by comparing the heat flow of the eigenfunction with that of an artifically constructed diffusion process. The same method should apply to a number of other questions; for example, we prove a sharp result saying that a nodal domain cannot be entirely contained in a small neighbourhood of a 'reasonably flat' surface. We expect the arising concepts to have more connections to classical theory and pose some conjectures in that direction.
The purpose of this paper is to give a simple proof of sharp $L^\infty$ estimates for the eigenfunctions of the Dirichlet Laplacian on smooth compact Riemannian manifolds $(M,g)$ of dimension $n\ge 2$ with boundary $\partial M$ and then to use these estimates to prove new estimates for Bochner Riesz means in this setting. Our eigenfunction estimates involve estimating the $L^2\to L^\infty$ mapping properties of the operators $χ_λ$ which project onto unit bands of the spectrum of the square root of the Laplacian. These generalize the recent estimates of D. Grieser for individual eigenfunctions.…
Let $(M,g)$ be a compact, smooth Riemannian manifold and $\{u_h\}$ be a sequence of $L^2$-normalized Laplace eigenfunctions that has a localized defect measure $μ$ in the sense that $ M \setminus \text{supp}(π_* μ) \neq \emptyset$ where $π:T^*M \to M$ is the canonical projection. Using Carleman estimates we prove that for any real-smooth closed hypersurface $H \subset (M\setminus \text{supp} (π_* μ))$ sufficiently close to $ \text{supp}(π_* μ),$ and for all $δ>0,$ $$ \int_{H} |u_h|^2 dσ\geq C_δ\, e^{- [\, d(H, \text{supp}(π_* μ)) + \,δ] /h} $$ as $h \to 0^+$. We also show that the result holds…
We use the Gauss-Bonnet theorem and the triangle comparison theorems of Rauch and Toponogov to show that on compact Riemann surfaces of negative curvature period integrals of eigenfunctions $e_λ$ over geodesics go to zero at the rate of $O((\logλ)^{-1/2})$ if $λ$ are their frequencies. As discussed in \cite{CSPer}, no such result is possible in the constant curvature case if the curvature is $\ge0$. Notwithstanding, we also show that these bounds for period integrals are valid provided that integrals of the curvature over all geodesic balls of radius $r\le 1$ are pinched from above by $-δr^N$ …
We consider the inverse problem to determine a smooth compact Riemannian manifold with boundary $(M, g)$ from a restriction $Λ_{\Src, \Rec}$ of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator for the wave equation on the manifold. Here $\Src$ and $\Rec$ are open sets in $\p M$ and the restriction $Λ_{\Src, \Rec}$ corresponds to the case where the Dirichlet data is supported on $\R_+\times \Src$ and the Neumann data is measured on $\R_+\times \Rec$. In the novel case where $\bar \Src \cap \bar \Rec = \emptyset$, we show that $Λ_{\Src, \Rec}$ determines the manifold $(M,g)$ uniquely, assuming that the wave eq…
We construct a Riemannian metric on the $ 2 $-dimensional torus, such that for infinitely many eigenvalues of the Laplace-Beltrami operator, a corresponding eigenfunction has infinitely many isolated critical points. A minor modification of our construction implies that each of these eigenfunctions has a level set with infinitely many connected components (i.e., a linear combination of two eigenfunctions may have infinitely many nodal domains).
Let $(Ω,g)$ be a compact, analytic Riemannian manifold with analytic boundary $\partial Ω= M.$ We give $L^2$-lower bounds for Steklov eigenfunctions and their restrictions to interior hypersurfaces $H \subset Ω^{\circ}$ in a geometrically defined neighborhood of $M$. Our results are optimal in the entire geometric neighborhood and complement the results on eigenfunction upper bounds in the author's previous work.
Let $e(x,y,ł)$ be the spectral function and $χ_ł$ the unit band spectral projection operator, with respect to the Laplace-Beltrami operator $\D_M$ on a closed Riemannian manifold $M$. We firstly review the one-term asymptotic formula of $e(x,x,ł)$ as $ł\to\infty$ by H{\" o}rmander (1968) and the one of $\p^\al_x\p^\bt_y e(x,y,ł)|_{x=y}$ as $ł\to\infty$ in a geodesic normal coordinate chart by the author (2004) and the sharp asymptotic estimates from above of the mapping norm $\|χ_ł\|_{L_2\to L_p}$ ($2\leq p\leq\infty$) by Sogge (1988 $&$ 1989) and of the mapping norm $\|χ_ł\|_{L_2\to {\rm Sobo…
Let $(M,g)$ be a compact, smooth, Riemannian manifold and $\{ ϕ_h \}$ an $L^2$-normalized sequence of Laplace eigenfunctions with defect measure $μ$. Let $H$ be a smooth hypersurface. Our main result says that when $μ$ is $\textit{not}$ concentrated conormally to $H$, the eigenfunction restrictions to $H$ and the restrictions of their normal derivatives to $H$ have integrals converging to 0 as $h \to 0^+$.
Let $(M,g)$ be a smooth, compact, Riemannian manifold and $\{ϕ_h\}$ a sequence of $L^2$-normalized Laplace eigenfunctions on $M$. For a smooth submanifold $H\subset M$, we consider the growth of the restricted eigenfunctions $ϕ_h|_H$ by testing them against a sequence of functions $\{ψ_h\}$ on $H$ whose wavefront set avoids $S^*H$. That is, we study what we call the generalized Fourier coefficients: $\langle ϕ_h,ψ_h\rangle_{L^2(H)}$. We give an explicit bound on these coefficients depending on how the defect measures for the two collections of functions $ϕ_h$ and $ψ_h$ relate. This allows us t…
This is a survey on eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on Riemannian manifolds (mainly compact and without boundary). We discuss both local results obtained by analyzing eigenfunctions on small balls, and global results obtained by wave equation methods. Among the main topics are nodal sets, quantum limits, and $L^p$ norms of global eigenfunctions.
This article is concerned with uniqueness and stability issues for the inverse spectral problem of recovering the magnetic field and the electric potential in a Riemannian manifold from some asymptotic knowledge of the boundary spectral data of the corresponding Schrödinger operator under Dirichlet boundary conditions. The spectral data consist of some asymptotic knowledge of a subset of eigenvalues and Neumann traces of the associated eigenfunctions of the magnetic Laplacian. We also address the same question for Schrödinger operators under Neumann boundary conditions, in which case we measur…
In this paper it is proposed a very simple method for estimating the maximal operator in $L_1$. Using this method one can considerably improve the existing theorems on convergence almost-everywhere of eigenfunction expansions of an arbitrary elliptic differential operators with a point spectrum. In particular, it is obtained a new result on convergence almost-everywhere of spherical partial sums of the multiple Fourier series of smooth functions.
We establish continuous maximal regularity results for parabolic differential operators acting on sections of tensor bundles on Riemannian manifolds. As an application, we show that solutions to the Yamabe flow instantaneously regularize and become real analytic in space and time. The regularity result is obtained by introducing a family of parameter-dependent diffeomorphims acting on functions over Riemannian manifolds in conjunction with maximal regularity and the implicit function theorem.
Let $(M,g)$ be a compact Riemannian surface with nonpositive sectional curvature and let $γ$ be a closed geodesic in $M$. And let $e_λ$ be an $L^2$-normalized eigenfunction of the Laplace-Beltrami operator $Δ_g$ with $-Δ_g e_λ= λ^2 e_λ$. Sogge, Xi, and Zhang showed using the Gauss-Bonnet theorem that $$ \int_γe_λ\, ds = O((\logλ)^{-1/2}),$$ an improvement over the general $O(1)$ bound. We show this integral enjoys the same decay for a wide variety of curves, where $M$ has nonpositive sectional curvature. These are the curves $γ$ whose geodesic curvature avoids, pointwise, the geodesic curvatur…
We study nonlinear Schrödinger equations, posed on a three dimensional Riemannian manifold $M$. We prove global existence of strong $H^1$ solutions on $M=S^3$ and $M=S^2\times S^1$ as far as the nonlinearity is defocusing and sub-quintic and thus we extend the results of Ginibre-Velo and Bourgain who treated the cases of the Euclidean space $\R^3$ and the flat torus $\T^3$ respectively. The main ingredient in our argument is a new set of multilinear estimates for spherical harmonics.
Suppose that $M$ is a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary and $u$ is an $L^2$-normalized Dirichlet eigenfunction with eigenvalue $λ$. Let $ψ$ be its normal derivative at the boundary. Scaling considerations lead one to expect that the $L^2$ norm of $ψ$ will grow as $λ^{1/2}$ as $λ\to \infty$. We prove an upper bound of the form $\|ψ\|_2^2 \leq Cλ$ for any Riemannian manifold, and a lower bound $c λ\leq \|ψ\|_2^2$ provided that $M$ has no trapped geodesics (see the main Theorem for a precise statement). Here $c$ and $C$ are positive constants that depend on $M$, but not on $λ$. The proof …
We find new polynomial upper bounds for the size of nodal sets of eigenfunctions when the Riemannian manifold has a Gevrey or quasianalytic regularity.
Given a compact Riemannian manifold $(M, g)$ without boundary, we estimate the Lebesgue norm of Laplace-Beltrami eigenfunctions when restricted to a wide variety of subsets $Γ$ of $M$. The sets $Γ$ that we consider are Borel measurable, Lebesgue-null but otherwise arbitrary with positive Hausdorff dimension. Our estimates are based on Frostman-type ball growth conditions for measures supported on $Γ$. For large Lebesgue exponents $p$, these estimates provide a natural generalization of $L^p$ bounds for eigenfunctions restricted to submanifolds, previously obtained in \cite{Ho68, Ho71, Sog88, B…
We study the relationship between $L^\infty$ growth of eigenfunctions and their $L^2$ concentration as measured by defect measures. In particular, we show that scarring in the sense of concentration of defect measure on certain submanifolds is incompatible with maximal $L^\infty$ growth. In addition, we show that a defect measure which is too diffuse, such as the Liouville measure, is also incompatible with maximal eigenfunction growth.
On any compact Riemannian manifold $(M, g)$ of dimension $n$, the $L^2$-normalized eigenfunctions ${ϕ_λ}$ satisfy $||ϕ_λ||_{\infty} \leq C λ^{\frac{n-1}{2}}$ where $-Δϕ_λ = λ^2 ϕ_λ.$ The bound is sharp in the class of all $(M, g)$ since it is obtained by zonal spherical harmonics on the standard $n$-sphere $S^n$. But of course, it is not sharp for many Riemannian manifolds, e.g. flat tori $\R^n/Γ$. We say that $S^n$, but not $\R^n/Γ$, is a Riemannian manifold with maximal eigenfunction growth. The problem which motivates this paper is to determine the $(M, g)$ with maximal eigenfunction growth…
Let $\mathbb{M}$ be a compact $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifold of dimension $n$, $n\geq 3$, and let $φ_λ: Δ_M φ_λ+ λφ_λ= 0$ denote the Laplace eigenfunction on $\mathbb{M}$ corresponding to the eigenvalue $λ$. We show that $$H^{n-1}(\{ φ_λ=0\}) \leq C λ^α,$$ where $α>1/2$ is a constant, which depends on $n$ only, and $C>0$ depends on $\mathbb{M}$ . This result is a consequence of our study of zero sets of harmonic functions on $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifolds. We develop a technique of propagation of smallness for solutions of elliptic PDE that allows us to obtain local bounds from …
The nodal set of the Laplacian eigenfunction has co-dimension one and has finite hypersurface measure on a compact Riemannian manifold. In this paper, we investigate the distribution of the nodal sets of eigenfunctions, when the metric on the manifold is analytic. We prove that if the eigenfunctions are equidistributed at a small scale, then the weak limits of the hypersurface volume form of their nodal sets are comparable to the volume form on the manifold. In particular, on the negatively curved manifolds with analytic metric and on the tori, we show that in any eigenbasis, there is a full d…
In a Hadamard manifold $M$, it is proved that if $u$ is a $λ$-eigenfunction of the Laplacian that belongs to $L^p(M)$ for some $p \ge 2$, then $u$ is bounded and $\|u\|_{\infty} \le C \|u\|_p,$ where $C$ depends only on $p$, $λ$ and on the dimension of $M$. This result is obtained in the more general context of a complete Riemannian manifold endowed with an isoperimetric function $H$ satisfying some integrability condition. In this case, the constant $C$ depends on $p,λ$ and $H.$
We prove a couple of new endpoint geodesic restriction estimates for eigenfunctions. In the case of general 3-dimensional compact manifolds, after a $TT^*$ argument, simply by using the $L^2$-boundedness of the Hilbert transform on $\R$, we are able to improve the corresponding $L^2$-restriction bounds of Burq, Gérard and Tzvetkov and Hu. Also, in the case of 2-dimensional compact manifolds with nonpositive curvature, we obtain improved $L^4$-estimates for restrictions to geodesics, which, by Hölder's inequality and interpolation, implies improved $L^p$-bounds for all exponents $p\ge 2$. We do…
We provide a necessary and sufficient condition that $L^p$-norms, $2<p<6$, of eigenfunctions of the square root of minus the Laplacian on 2-dimensional compact boundaryless Riemannian manifolds $M$ are small compared to a natural power of the eigenvalue $λ$. The condition that ensures this is that their $L^2$ norms over $O(λ^{-1/2})$ neighborhoods of arbitrary unit geodesics are small when $λ$ is large (which is not the case for the highest weight spherical harmonics on $S^2$ for instance). The proof exploits Gauss' lemma and the fact that the bilinear oscillatory integrals in Hörmander's proo…
Let $e_ł(x)$ be an eigenfunction with respect to the Dirichlet Laplacian $Δ_N$ on a compact Riemannian manifold $N$ with boundary: $Δ_N e_ł=ł^2 e_ł$ in the interior of $N$ and $e_ł=0$ on the boundary of $N$. We show the following gradient estimate of $e_ł$: for every $ł\geq 1$, there holds $ł\|e_ł\|_\infty/C\leq \|\nabla e_ł\|_\infty\leq Cł\|e_ł\|_\infty$, where $C$ is a positive constant depending only on $N$. In the proof, we use a basic geometrical property of nodal sets of eigenfunctions and elliptic apriori estimates.
