Spectra and symmetric eigentensors of the Lichnerowicz Laplacian on \(S^{n}\) (Q1012054)

Let \((M,g)\) be a Riemannian manifold, \(D\) the Levi-Civita connection and \(R\) the curvature operator. \(D\) induces a differential operator on covariant tensors. Let \(D^*\) be its formal adjoint. The Lichnerovicz Laplacian is the second order differential operator on tensor fields given by the formula \(\triangle_M(T)=D^*D(T)+R(T)\). This operator is self-adjoint, elliptic and it respects the symmetries of tensor fields. In particular, it leaves invariant the space \(S(M)\) of symmetric covariant tensor fields and its restriction to the space of differential \(p\)-forms coincides with the Hodge-de Rham Laplacian. The Lichnerowicz Laplacian acting on symmetric covariant tensor fields is important in mathematical physics. Acting on symmetric covariant 2-tensor fields appears in many problems in Riemannian geometry. On a compact Riemannian manifold, the Lichnerowicz Laplacian has discrete eigenvalues with finite multiplicities and it is an interesting problem to determine explicitly the eigenvalues and the eigentensors. In some special situations, this was done in previous works. In the present work, the eigenvalues and the spaces of eigentensors of the Lichnerowicz Laplacian acting on symmetric covariant tensor fields on the Euclidean sphere \(S^n\) are computed.