The macroscopic sound of tori. (Q1880124)

Let \((T^m,g)\) be a Riemannian torus. Lift the metric \(g\) to a metric \(\tilde g\) on the universal cover \(R^m\) and let \(B_{\tilde g}(\rho)\) be the induced metric ball. Impose Dirichlet (resp. Neumann boundary) conditions and let \(\lambda_i(B_g(\rho))\) be the \(i^{th}\) eigenvalue of the scalar Laplacian. This can be regarded as the macroscopic spectrum of the torus. The author shows: Theorem 1. There exists an elliptic operator \(\Delta_\infty\) which is the Laplacian of some Euclidean metric on \({R}^m\) such that if \(\lambda_i^\infty\) is its \(i^{th}\) eigenvalue for the Dirichlet (resp. Neumann) problem on the stable's norm unit ball then \[ \lim_{\rho\rightarrow\infty}\rho^2\lambda_i(B_{\tilde g}(\rho))=\lambda_i^\infty\,. \] Let \(\lambda_{e,m}\) be the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of the Euclidean Laplacian on the Euclidean unit ball. The author also shows Theorem 2. Impose Dirichlet boundary conditions. Then \(\lim_{\rho\rightarrow\infty}\rho^2\lambda_1(B_{\tilde g}(\rho))=\lambda_1^\infty\leq\lambda_{e,m}\). Equality holds if and only if the torus is flat.