A surface with discontinuous isoperimetric profile and expander manifolds (Q2181571)

In the introduction, the authors define expander sequences of manifolds as follows. ``Let \(M_n^k\) be a sequence of closed \(k\)-dimensional Riemannian manifolds all of which have volume \(1\). We say that it is an expander sequence (or an expander manifold) if for any \(n\) any smooth hypersurface \(S_n^{k-1}\) separating \(M_n^k\) in two open sets both of which have volume at least \(1/n\), has \((k-1)\)-volume at least equal to \(n\).'' They also define the isoperimetric profile function of a manifold as follows. ``If \((M^n,\,g)\) is a Riemannian manifold the isoperimetric profile function of \(M^n\) is a function \(I_M : (0,\,\operatorname{vol}(M))\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^+\) defined by: \[ I_M(t)=\inf_\Omega \{\operatorname{vol}_{n-1}(\partial \Omega):\Omega\subset M^n,\,\operatorname{vol}_n(\Omega)=t\} \] where \(\Omega\) ranges over all open sets of \(M^n\) with smooth boundary. We note that we don't require \(\Omega\) to be connected.'' It turns out that \(I_M(t)\) is an upper semi-continuous but not necessarily continuous function. In Section 2, the authors use the concept of expander manifolds to show that there exists a complete connected 2-dimensional Riemannian manifold with discontinuous isoperimetric profile. This answers a question of \textit{S. Nardulli} and \textit{P. Pansu} [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci. (5) 18, No. 2, 537--549 (2018; Zbl 1396.53058)]. In Section 3, the authors show that, for every \(\epsilon,\,M>0\) there is a Riemannian sphere \(S\) of volume \(1\), such that every (not necessarily connected) surface separating \(S\) in two regions of volume greater than \(\epsilon\) has area greater than \(M\), again with the help of expander manifolds. The article ends with a discussion and open questions (Section 4).