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 of the upper bound is via a Rellich-type estimate and is rather simple, while the lower bound is proved via a positive commutator estimate.
We consider the Dirichlet eigenvalue problem on a simple polytope. We use the Rellich identity to obtain an explicit formula expressing the Dirichlet eigenvalue in terms of the Neumann data on the faces of the polytope of the corresponding eigenfunction. The formula is particular simple for polytopes admitting an inscribed ball tangent to all the faces. Our result could be viewed as a generalization of similar identities for simplices recently found by Christianson [1][2].
Bounds are obtained for the efficiency or mean to peak ratio $E(Ω)$ for the first Dirichlet eigenfunction (positive) for open, connected sets $Ω$ with finite measure in Euclidean space $\R^m$. It is shown that (i) localisation implies vanishing efficiency, (ii) a vanishing upper bound for the efficiency implies localisation, (iii) localisation occurs for the first Dirichlet eigenfunctions for a wide class of elongating bounded, open, convex and planar sets, (iv) if $Ω_n$ is any quadrilateral with perpendicular diagonals of lengths $1$ and $n$ respectively, then the sequence of first Dirichlet …
We consider the Laplace operator with Dirichlet boundary conditions on a domain in R^d and study the effect that performing a scaling in one direction has on the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenfunctions as a function of the scaling parameter around zero. This generalizes our previous results in two dimensions and, as in that case, allows us to obtain an approximation for Dirichlet eigenvalues for a large class of domains, under very mild assumptions. As an application, we derive a three--term asymptotic expansion for the first eigenvalue of d-dimensional ellipsoids.
In this paper, we revisit Courant's nodal domain theorem for the Dirichlet eigenfunctions of a square membrane, and the analyses of A. Stern and Å. Pleijel.
We study the nodal curves of low energy Dirichlet eigenfunctions in generalized curvilinear quadrilaterals. The techniques can be seen as a generalization of the tools developed by Grieser-Jerison in a series of works on convex planar domains and rectangles with one curved edge and a large aspect ratio. Here, we study the structure of the nodal curve in greater detail, in that we find precise bounds on its curvature, with uniform estimates up to the two points where it meets the domain at right angles, and show that many of our results hold for relatively small aspect ratios of the side length…
Let ϕ be a Dirichlet or Neumann eigenfunction of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary. We prove lower bounds for the size of the nodal set {ϕ=0}.
Let $Ω$ be a bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with $C^{1}$ boundary and let $u_λ$ be a Dirichlet Laplace eigenfunction in $Ω$ with eigenvalue $λ$. We show that the $(n-1)$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the zero set of $u_λ$ does not exceed $C(Ω)\sqrtλ$. This result is new even for the case of domains with $C^\infty$-smooth boundary.
We introduce the class of quasiconvex Lipschitz domains, which covers both $C^1$ and convex domains, to the study of boundary unique continuation for elliptic operators. In particular, we prove the upper bound of the size of nodal sets for Dirichlet eigenfunctions of general elliptic equations in bounded quasiconvex Lipschitz domains. Our result is new even for Laplace operator in convex domains.
We consider the principal eigenvalue problem for the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the upper half of a topological torus under the Dirichlet boundary condition. We present a construction of the upper half of a topological torus that admits the principal eigenfunction having exact numbers of critical points. Furthermore, we manage to identify the locations of all the critical points of the principal eigenfunction explicitly.
Let $Ω$ be a bounded annular $C^{1,1}$ domain in $\mathbb{R}^2$ which is left invariant under the action of the dihedral group $D_n$ of isometries of $\mathbb{R}^2$ .We show that the nodal line of a second Dirichlet eigenfunction must intersect the boundary of $Ω$, under suitable conditions on $\frac{\partial}{\partial θ}$ .
We consider Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators associated to $Δ+q$ on a Lipschitz domain in a smooth manifold, where $q$ is an $L^{\infty}$ potential. We prove a Courant-type bound for the nodal count of the extensions $u_k$ of the $k$th Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions $ϕ_k$ to the interior satisfying $(Δ+q)u_k=0$. The classical Courant nodal domain theorem is known to hold for Steklov eigenfunctions, which are the harmonic extension of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions associated to $Δ$. Our result extends it to a larger family of Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators. Our proof makes use of t…
Recent work of the authors and their collaborators has uncovered fundamental connections between the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map, the spectral flow of a certain family of self-adjoint operators, and the nodal deficiency of a Laplacian eigenfunction (or an analogous deficiency associated to a non-bipartite equipartition). Using a refined construction of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map, we strengthen all of these results, in particular getting improved bounds on the nodal deficiency of degenerate eigenfunctions. Our framework is very general, allowing for non-bipartite partitions, non-simple eigenvalu…
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.
For a family of elliptic operators with rapidly oscillating periodic coefficients, we study the convergence rates for Dirichlet eigenvalues and bounds of the normal derivatives of Dirichlet eigenfunctions. The results rely on an $O(ε)$ estimate in $H^1$ for solutions with Dirichlet condition.
Let $(Ω,g)$ be a compact, real-analytic Riemannian manifold with real-analytic boundary $\partial Ω.$ The harmonic extensions of the boundary Dirchlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions are called Steklov eigenfunctions. We show that the Steklov eigenfuntions decay exponentially into the interior in terms of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenvalues and give a sharp rate of decay to first order at the boundary. The proof uses the Poisson representation for the Steklov eigenfunctions combined with sharp $h$-microlocal concentration estimates for the boundary Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions near the cosph…
In this paper, for a family of second-order elliptic equations with rapidly oscillating periodic coefficients and rapidly oscillating periodic potentials, we are interested in the $H^1$ convergence rates and the Dirichlet eigenvalues and bounds of the normal derivatives of Dirichlet eigenfunctions. The $H^1$ convergence rates rely on the Dirichlet correctors and the first-order corrector for the oscillating potentials. And the bound results rely on an $O(\varepsilon)$ estimate in $H^1$ for solutions with Dirichlet condition.
The oscillation of a Laplacian eigenfunction gives a great deal of information about the manifold on which it is defined. This oscillation can be encoded in the nodal deficiency, an important geometric quantity that is notoriously hard to compute, or even estimate. Here we compare two recently obtained formulas for the nodal deficiency, one in terms of an energy functional on the space of equipartitions of the manifold, and the other in terms of a two-sided Dirichlet-to-Neumann map defined on the nodal set. We relate these two approaches by giving an explicit formula for the Hessian of the equ…
We study the behaviour of the first eigenfunction of the Dirichlet Laplacian on a planar convex domain near its maximum. We show that the eccentricity and orientation of the superlevel sets of the eigenfunction stabilise as they approach the maximum, uniformly with respect to the eccentricity of the domain itself. This is achieved by obtaining quantitatively sharp second derivative estimates, which are consistent with the shape of the superlevel sets. In particular, we prove that the eigenfunction is concave (rather than merely log concave) in an entire superlevel set near its maximum. By esti…
We consider a family of domains $(Ω_N)_{N>0}$ obtained by attaching an $N\times 1$ rectangle to a fixed set $Ω_0 = \{(x,y): 0<y<1, -ϕ(y)<x<0\}$, for a Lipschitz function $ϕ\geq 0$. We derive full asymptotic expansions, as $N\to\infty$, for the $m$th Dirichlet eigenvalue (for any fixed $m$) and for the associated eigenfunction on $Ω_N$. The second term involves a scattering phase arising in the Dirichlet problem on the infinite domain $Ω_\infty$. We determine the first variation of this scattering phase, with respect to $ϕ$, at $ϕ\equiv 0$. This is then used to prove sharpness of results, obtai…
In this paper, we study eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of $p$-Laplacians with Dirichlet boundary condition on graphs. We characterize the first eigenfunction (and the maximum eigenfunction for a bipartite graph) via the sign condition. By the uniqueness of the first eigenfunction of $p$-Laplacian, as $p\to 1,$ we identify the Cheeger constant of a symmetric graph with that of the quotient graph. By this approach, we calculate various Cheeger constants of spherically symmetric graphs.
We consider the Dirichlet-energy maximization problem of the solution $u_f$ of (\ref{main}), among all functions $f\in L^2(D)$, such that $\|f\|_2= 1$. We show that the two maximizers are the first eigenfunctions of the Laplacian with Dirichlet boundary condition $f=\pm u_1$.
Let $Ω\subset {\bf R}^d$ be a bounded open set with Lipschitz boundary $Γ$. It will be shown that the Jordan chains of m-sectorial second-order elliptic partial differential operators with measurable coefficients and (local or non-local) Robin boundary conditions in $L_2(Ω)$ can be characterized with the help of Jordan chains of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map and the boundary operator from $H^{1/2}(Γ)$ into $H^{-1/2}(Γ)$. This result extends the Birman--Schwinger principle in the framework of elliptic operators for the characterization of eigenvalues, eigenfunctions and geometric eigenspaces to …
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.
The paper is concerned with the doubling estimates and vanishing order of the Steklov eigenfunction on the boundary of a smooth boundary domain $\mathbb R^n$. The eigenfunction is given by a Dirichlet-to-Neumann map. We improve the doubling property shown by Lin and Bellova \cite{BL}. Furthermore, we show that the vanishing order of Steklov eigenfunction is everywhere less than $Cλ$ where $λ$ is the Steklov eigenvalue and $C$ depends only on $Ω$.
We consider a spectral optimal design problem involving the Neumann traces of the Dirichlet-Laplacian eigenfunctions on a smooth bounded open subset $Ω$ of $\R^n$. The cost functional measures the amount of energy that Dirichlet eigenfunctions concentrate on the boundary and that can be recovered with a bounded density function. We first prove that, assuming a $L^1$ constraint on densities, the so-called {\it Rellich functions} maximize this functional.Motivated by several issues in shape optimization or observation theory where it is relevant to deal with bounded densities, and noticing that …
In this article, we study the asymptotics of Dirichlet eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the fractional Laplacian $(-Δ)^s$ in bounded open Lipschitz sets in the small order limit $s \to 0^+$. While it is easy to see that all eigenvalues converge to $1$ as $s \to 0^+$, we show that the first order correction in these asymptotics is given by the eigenvalues of the logarithmic Laplacian operator, i.e., the singular integral operator with symbol $2\log|ξ|$. By this we generalize a result of Chen and the third author which was restricted to the principal eigenvalue. Moreover, we show that $L^2$-nor…
In this paper we consider eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a planar domain with polygonal boundary with Dirichlet, Neumann, or mixed boundary conditions. The main result is a quantitative estimate on the $L^2$ mass of eigenfunctions near a point in terms of the distance to the nearest non-adjacent boundary face. In particular, eigenfunctions cannot concentrate completely at any one single point. The technique of proof is to use the commutator ideas from the recent work of the author \cite{Chr-tri,Chr-simp} on triangles and simplices.
We use probabilistic tools based on Brownian motion and Feynman-Kac formulae to investigate the heat profile for the ground state Dirichlet and second Neumann eigenfunctions. Among other topics, we comment on supremum norm bounds for ground state Dirichlet eigenfunctions and look at the corresponding Neumann problem, namely the comparison of maximum temperatures on the interior and the boundary, the latter being partially motivated by the hot spots problem. We also investigate the proximity/distance of level sets of ground state Dirichlet eigenfunctions, some with analogous statements for Neum…
In this paper, we study the boundary traces of eigenfunctions on the boundary of a smooth and bounded domain. An identity derived by Bäcker, Fürstburger, Schubert, and Steiner, expressing (in some sense) the asymptotic completeness of the set of boundary traces in a frequency window of size O(1), is proved both for Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. We then prove a semiclassical generalization of this identity.
To $1/2$-logconcavity and beyond: Geometric properties of Dirichlet eigenfunctions
Institute of Mathematics, Hunan University（湖南大学数学研究所）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Fudan University（复旦大学数学科学学院）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Soochow University（苏州大学数学科学学院）
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.
In this paper we revisit an approach pioneered by Auchmuty to approximate solutions of the Laplace- Robin boundary value problem. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach on a large class of non-tensorial domains, in contrast with other spectral approaches for such problems. We establish a spectral approximation theorem showing an exponential fast numerical evaluation with regards to the number of Steklov eigenfunctions used, for smooth domains and smooth boundary data. A polynomial fast numerical evaluation is observed for either non-smooth domains or non-smooth boundary data. We addition…
In this paper, we prove the upper and lower bounds for normal derivatives of spectral clusters $u=χ_λ^s f$ of Dirichlet Laplacian $Δ_M$, $$c_s λ\|u\|_{L^2(M)} \leq \| \partial_νu \|_{L^2(\partial M)} \leq C_s λ\|u\|_{L^2(M)} $$ where the upper bound is true for any Riemannian manifold, and the lower bound is true for some small $0<s<s_M$, where $s_M$ depends on the manifold only, provided that $M$ has no trapped geodesics (see Theorem \ref{Thm3} for a precise statement), which generalizes the early results for single eigenfunctions by Hassell and Tao.
This paper is part of a series concerning the isospectral problem for an ellipse. In this paper, we study Cauchy data of eigenfunctions of the ellipse with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions. Using many classical results on ellipse eigenfunctions, we determine the microlocal defect measures of the Cauchy data of the eigenfunctions. The ellipse has integrable billiards, i.e. the boundary phase space is foliated by invariant curves of the billiard map. We prove that, for any invariant curve $C$, there exists a sequence of eigenfunctions whose Cauchy data concentrates on $C$. We use this re…
Let $(Ω,g)$ be a piecewise-smooth, bounded convex domain in $\R^2$ and consider $L^2$-normalized Neumann eigenfunctions $ϕ_λ$ with eigenvalue $λ^2$ and $u_λ:= ϕ_λ |_{\partial Ω}$ the associated Dirichlet data (ie. boundary restriction of $ϕ_λ$). Our first main result (Theorem \ref{T:non-con}) is a small-scale {\em non-concentration} estimate: We prove that for {\em any} $x_0 \in \overlineΩ,$ (including boundary corner points) and any $δ\in [0,1),$ $$ \| ϕ_h \|_{B(x_0,λ^{-δ})\cap Ω} = O(λ^{-δ/2}).$$ Our subsequent results involve applications of the nonconcentration estimate to upper bounds for…
In Boundary Element Method, Green's function with no boundary conditions is used for solving Laplace's equation with Dirichlet boundary condition. To determine the gradient of solution on the boundary, we need to solve the boundary integral equation numerically in most practical cases. Here we discuss the alternative method to avert solving that boundary integral equation. It is based on the solution for Poisson's equation which has the singularity on the boundary specified by the boundary function and shown it is applicable to arbitrary shaped domain and reduces calculation cost considerably.
