Spectral theory of a class of nilmanifolds attached to Clifford modules (Q2223523)

In the best reviewer's knowledge, this article begins the search for isospectral (non-trivial) sub-Riemannian manifolds, that is, to find pairs and families of compact sub-Riemannian manifolds such that the spectra of the corresponding sub-Laplace operators mutually coincide. Any geometric and topological property not shared by two isospectral objects is usually called \textit{inaudible}, that is, it is not determined by the spectral information. The underlying manifolds of the sub-Riemannian manifolds considered in the article are quotient by discrete cocompact subgroups of simply connected 2-step nilpotent Lie groups. Given such a group \(N\) and an inner product \(\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle\) on its Lie algebra (which induces a left-invariant metric \(g\) on \(N\)), the Lie algebra \(\mathfrak n\) of \(N\) decomposes as \(\mathfrak n=\mathcal H\oplus \mathcal C\), where \(\mathcal C\) is the center of \(\mathfrak n\) and \(\mathcal H\) is its orthogonal complement. The standard sub-Riemannian structure on \(N\) defined by \((\mathcal H,\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle|_{\mathcal H})\) descends to \(\Gamma\backslash N\) and has the associated sub-Laplacian given by \[ \Delta_{\text{sub}} = -\frac12 \sum_{i=1}^nX_i^2, \] where \(\{X_1,\dots,X_n\}\) denotes an orthonormal basis of \(\mathcal H\) with respect to \(\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle|_{\mathcal H}\). Let \(\Delta\) denote the Laplace-Beltrami operator associated to \((\Gamma\backslash N,g)\). It turns out that \(\Delta-\Delta_{\text{sub}}\) has a simple expression (see Proposition 3.2 in the article), which is one of the key points in the proof. The authors construct arbitrary large finite families of pairwise non-homeomorphic isospectral sub-Riemannian manifolds. The corresponding underlying nilmanifolds have non-isomorphic universal covering groups. Moreover, for a fixed such a family, each element has a naturally associated Riemannian metric and the corresponding family of Riemannian manifolds is still isospectral in the usual sense. These examples contribute to the long list of pairs and continuous curves of isospectral Riemannian nilmanifolds. We next list here some references since only [\textit{R. Gornet}; Michigan Math. J. 43 (1), 159--188 (1996; Zbl 0851.53024)] is cited in the article under review; we will restrict to those examples having non-isomorphic universal covering groups: [\textit{C. Gordon}; J. Differ. Geom. 37 (3), 639--649 (1993; Zbl 0792.53037)], Section 3 in [\textit{C. Gordon} and \textit{E. Wilson}; J. Differ. Geom. 47 (3), 504--529 (1997; Zbl 0915.58104)], [\textit{D. Schueth}; Math. Z. 260 (3), 595--613 (2008; Zbl 1147.58037)] (the reader may find in Section 2 of this paper a clear explanation of the method used in these references), and [\textit{T. Arias-Marco} and \textit{D. Schueth}; Rev. R. Acad. Cienc. Exactas Fís. Nat., Ser. A Mat., RACSAM 111 (2), 547--574 (2017; Zbl 1364.58013)]. The paper under review works exclusively with \textsl{pseudo H-type groups}. Furthermore, it computes and compares the short time heat trace expansion of the corresponding sub-Laplace and Laplace operator, rather than the spectra of \(\Delta_{\text{sub}}\) and \(\Delta\).