The sharp lower bound of the first Dirichlet eigenvalue for geodesic balls (Q2069665)

In the work [Acta Math. 153, 279--301 (1984; Zbl 0556.31005)] \textit{P. Li} and \textit{R. Schoen} proved the uniform Poincaré inequality for geodesic balls of complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds with $Rc\geq 0$. Their Poincaré inequality is not sharp. In the present article the authors prove the sharp Poincaré inequality by obtaining the sharp lower bound of the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of geodesic balls. The result is the following: Suppose that \(M^n\) is a complete non-compact Riemannian manifold with \(Rc\geq 0\), for any \(p \in M^n\). Then \(\lambda_1(B_1( p)) > \frac{\pi ^2}{16}\), where \(B_1( p) \subset M^n\) is the unit geodesic ball centered at \(p\). This lower bound is sharp.