Dirichlet spectrum and heat content (Q1874455)

Let \(D\) be a compact Riemannian manifold with smooth boundary. Impose Dirichlet boundary conditions. Let \(\beta_D(t)\) be the total heat energy content of \(D\) where the initial temperature is assumed to be \(1\). This has a complete asymptotic expansion as \(t\downarrow 0\) of the form \(\beta_D(t)\sim\sum_{n\geq 0}\beta_n(D)t^{n/2}\). The authors use Brownian motion to study the relationship between the Dirichlet spectrum of \(D\) and the heat content asymptotics. They describe a sequence of invariants which are defined using exit time moments and show these invariants determine the Dirichlet spectrum corresponding to eigenspaces which are not orthogonal to constant functions. They also show that when \(D\) is a generic domain in flat space, then these invariants also determine the Dirichlet spectrum.