Discreteness conditions for the Laplacian on complete, non-compact Riemannian manifolds (Q1090947)

This paper is a shortened version of the author's thesis (Duisburg 1985; Zbl 0591.53040) and it contains a necessary and sufficient criterion for the discreteness of the spectrum of the Laplacian for manifolds with a finite number of ends. Topologically these ends are \({\mathbb{R}}^ +\times N\) (N is compact) with metric tensor \(g_{ij}(r,x)=\left( \begin{matrix} 1\\ 0\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} 0\\ \omega (r,x)\end{matrix} \right),\) (r,x)\(\in {\mathbb{R}}^ +\times N\), and \(\omega\) representing the metric of the hypersurfaces \(\{\) \(r\}\) \(\times N\). The result extends in a certain sense Baider's reduction principle for warped products \({\mathbb{R}}^ +\times N\) [cf. \textit{A. Baider}, J. Differ. Geom. 14, 41-57 (1979; Zbl 0411.58022)]. Links between geometry and discreteness are investigated.