Riemannian manifolds with maximal eigenfunction growth (Q1857107)

Let \(\Delta\) be the Laplacian on a closed Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) of dimension \(n\). Let \(\Delta\phi=\lambda\phi\) where \(\phi\) has \(L^2\)-norm \(1\). Then the sup norm can be estimated by \(||\phi||_\infty\leq C\lambda^{n-1}\). The bound is sharp for the standard sphere \(S^n\) as it is realized by zonal harmonics. It is not sharp for many Riemannian manifolds -- for example, it fails for the flat torus \(R^n/\Gamma\). Thus \(S^n\) but not \(R^n/\Gamma\) is a Riemannian manifold with maximal eigenfunction growth. The authors show that if \((M,g)\) has maximal eigenfunction growth, then the set of geodesic loops at \(x\) must have positive measure in \(S^*_xM\) for some \(x\in M\); this is a necessary but not sufficient condition. In the real analytic setting, there are topological restrictions on such manifolds -- for example if \(n=2\), then only \(S^2\) and \(\mathbb{R} P^2\) can have analytic metrics with maximal eigenfunction growth.