Compactness of relatively isospectral sets of surfaces via conformal surgeries (Q2347946)

The authors propose the following notion of isospectrality for non-compact manifolds: two Riemannian manifolds \((M_1,g_1)\) and \((M_2,g_2)\) are \textit{relatively isospectral} if there exist compact subsets \(K_i\subseteq M_i\smallsetminus \partial M_i\) such that \((M_1\smallsetminus K_1,g_1)\) and \((M_2\smallsetminus K_2,g_2)\) are isometric and the trace of the difference of the heat kernels \(e^{-t\Delta_{g_1}}-e^{-t\Delta_{g_2}}\) seen in \(L^2(K_1,g_1)\oplus L^2(K_2,g_2)\oplus L^2(M_i\smallsetminus K_i,g_i)\) is identically zero for all \(t>0\). They prove a compactness result of relative isospectral sets of certain surfaces with boundary having possibly non-compact ends. The manifolds considered are Funnel-cusp-boundary Riemannian surfaces. This result extends [\textit{B. Osgood} et al., J. Funct. Anal. 80, No. 1, 212--234 (1988; Zbl 0653.53021)] and [\textit{D. Borthwick} and \textit{P. A. Perry}, J. Geom. Anal. 21, No. 2, 305--333 (2011; Zbl 1229.58024)]. Their main tool is conformal surgery.