Eigenvalue estimates for the \(p\)-Laplace operator on manifolds (Q1049037)

The paper under review deals with the spectral theory of the \(p\)-Laplacian on Riemannian manifolds. More precisely, let \((M,g)\) be a smooth Riemannian manifold and \(\Omega\) a domain in \(M\). For \(p>1\), write \(W_{0}^{1,p}(\Omega)\) for the Sobolev space defined as the closure of the space of compactly supported functions on \(\Omega\) with respect to the norm \[ \| u\|_{1,p}^{p}=\int_{\Omega}| u|^{p}\,d\Omega+\int_{\Omega}\|\nabla u\|^{p}\,d\Omega. \] Attached to \(\Omega\) are two important numbers: \[ \mu_{p}^{\star}(\Omega)=\inf \bigg\{\frac{\int_{\Omega}\|\nabla f\|^{p}d\Omega}{\int_{\Omega}| f|^{p}d\Omega}\;\bigg|\;f\in W_{0}^{1,p}(\Omega),\;f\neq 0 \bigg\}\;\text{ (the \(p\)-fundamental tone of }\Omega) \] and \[ c(\Omega)=\sup \bigg \{\frac{\inf_{\Omega} \text{div}(X)}{\sup_{\Omega}\| X\|}\;\bigg|\;X\in\chi(\Omega)\bigg\}, \] where \(\chi(X)\) is the space of smooth vector fields \(X\) on \(\Omega\) such that \(\sup_{\Omega}\| X\|=g(X,X)^{1/2}<+\infty\) and \(\inf_{\Omega} \text{div}(X)>0\). One of the main results proved in the paper under review is the following estimate: \[ \mu_{p}^{\star}(\Omega)\geq\frac{c(\Omega)^{p}}{p^{p}}>0 \] provided \(\partial\Omega\neq\emptyset\). A second result proved is that \[ \mu_{p}^{\star}(M)\geq \frac{(n-1)^{p}c^{p}}{p^{p}} \] when \(M\) is \(n\)-dimensional, complete, noncompact, simply connected with sectional curvature \(K\leq -c^{2}<0\).