First Robin eigenvalue of the \(p\)-Laplacian on Riemannian manifolds (Q2043062)

The purpose of this paper is to study the first Robin eigenvalue of the \(p\)-Laplacian on compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary. The authors establish Cheng's eigenvalue comparison theorem (Theorem 1.1) and sharp bounds for the first Robin eigenvalue of the \(p\)-Laplacian (Theorem 1.4). The authors denote \((M^n, g)\) an \(n\)-dimensional smooth compact Riemannian manifold with smooth boundary \(\partial M \not= \emptyset \). Let \(\Delta_p\) denote the \(p\)-Laplacian defined for \(1 < p < \infty \) by \[ \Delta_p u := \mbox{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\,, \] for \(u \in W^{1,p}(M)\). The authors consider the following eigenvalue problem with Robin boundary condition \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta_p v = \lambda |v|^{p-2}v,\quad\mbox{in}\;\; M, \cr \frac{\partial v}{\partial \nu} \,|\!\nabla v|^{p-2} + \alpha|v|^{p-2} v = 0, \quad\mbox{on}\;\; \partial M, \end{cases}\tag{1} \] where \(\nu\) denotes the outward unit normal vector field along \(\partial M\) and \(\alpha \in \mathbb{R} \) is called the Robin parameter. The first Robin eigenvalue for \(\Delta_p\), denoted by \(\lambda_p(M, \alpha)\), is the smallest number such that (1) admits a weak solution in the distributional sense. Theorem 1.1. Let \(M^n(\kappa )\) denote the simply-connected \(n\)-dimensional space form with constant sectional curvature \(\kappa\) and let \(V(\kappa , R)\) be a geodesic ball of radius \(R\) in \(M^n(\kappa)\). Let \(B_R(x_0) \subset M\) be the geodesic ball of radius \(R\) centered at \(x_0\). (We always have \(R < \frac{\pi}{\sqrt{\kappa}}\) if \(\kappa > 0\) in view of the Myers theorem). (1) Suppose \, \(\mathrm{Ric}\ge (n - 1)\kappa\) on \(B_R(x_0)\). Then \[\lambda_p(B_R(x_0), \alpha) \le \lambda_p(V(\kappa , R), \alpha),\text{ if }\alpha > 0,\] \[\lambda_p(B_R(x_0), \alpha) \ge \lambda_p(V(\kappa , R), \alpha),\text{ if }\alpha < 0. \] (2) Let \(\Omega \subset B_R(x_0)\) be a domain with smooth boundary. Suppose \(\mathrm{Sect} \le \kappa\) on \(\Omega\) and \(R\) is less than the injectivity radius at \(x_0\). Then \[\lambda_p(\Omega , \alpha) \ge \lambda_p(V(\kappa , R), \alpha),\text{ if }\alpha > 0,\] \[\lambda_p(\Omega , \alpha) \le \lambda_p(V(\kappa , R), \alpha),\text{ if }\alpha < 0.\] Moreover, the equality holds if and only if \(B_R(x_0)\) (or \(\Omega\) ) is isometric to \(V(\kappa , R)\). Now let \(R\) denote the inradius of \(M\) defined by \(R = \sup\{d(x, \partial M) : x \in M\}\). Let \(C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}(t)\) be the unique solution of \[ \begin{cases} C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}'' + \kappa\, C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}(t) = 0,\cr C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}(0) = 1, \cr C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}'(0) = -\Lambda, \end{cases} \] and define \[ T\kappa ,\Lambda(t) := \frac{C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}'(t)}{C_{\kappa ,\Lambda}(t)} . \]\\ The second main theorem states the following: Theorem 1.4. Suppose that the Ricci curvature of \(M\) is bounded from below by \((n - 1)\kappa\) and the mean curvature of \(\partial M\) is bounded from below by \((n - 1)\Lambda\) for some \(\kappa , \Lambda \in \mathbb{R}\). Then \[\lambda_p(M, \alpha) \ge \bar{\lambda}_p ([0, R], \alpha,\text{ if }\alpha > 0,\] \[\lambda_p(M, \alpha) \le \bar{\lambda}_p ([0, R], \alpha),\text{ if }\alpha < 0,\] where \(\bar{\lambda}_p ([0, R], \alpha)\) is the first eigenvalue of the one-dimensional eigenvalue problem \[ \begin{cases} (p - 1)|\varphi'|^{p-2}\varphi'' + (n - 1)T_{\kappa ,\Lambda}|\varphi' |^{p-2}\varphi' = -\lambda |\varphi|^{p-2}\varphi, \cr |\varphi'(0)|^{p-2}\varphi'(0) = \alpha|\varphi(0)|^{p-2}\varphi(0),\cr \varphi'(R) = 0. \end{cases} \] Moreover, the equality occurs if and only if \((M, g)\) is a \((\kappa , \Lambda)\)-model space defined in Definition 6.1.