The essential spectrum of non-simply-connected open complete Riemannian manifolds (Q1057559)

Let \((M^ n,g)\) be an open complete Riemannian manifold and assume that, inside a tube of constant radius around an infinite geodesic ray, the sectional curvature K tends to \(-c<0\) at infinity (in an appropriate ''smooth'' sense). Then, the main result shows that the essential spectrum of the Laplacian, acting on functions, contains the interval [\(\lambda\),0[, where \(\lambda\) depends on c, n and can be estimated in various cases. For simply connected manifolds of the above type, it is already known that \(\lambda =c(n-1)^ 2/4\), if K tends to \(-c<0\) at infinity. However, in the general context of the present paper, the usual techniques of the previous case do not apply. Instead, a systematic account of the fixed membrane problem for tubes in \(H^ n_{-c}\) as well as some comparison theorems for the Laplacian are used. The paper contains explicit calculations.