A metric Sturm-Liouville theory in two dimensions (Q2278131)

The classical Sturm-Hurwitz theorem states that if a continuous function on an interval is orthogonal to the first \(n\) eigenfunctions of a second-order Sturm-Liouville problem, then it must vanish in at least \(n\) points. This work provides a two-dimensional version of the Sturm-Hurwitz theorem. Given a uniformly elliptic operator on a compact two-dimensional manifold \(M\) (with or without boundary - in the latter case with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions), any continuous function on \(M\) which is orthogonal to the first \(n\) eigenfunctions vanishes on a set whose one-dimensional Hausdorff measure is bounded from below, up to a constant depending on \(M\), by \[\frac{\sqrt{n}}{\sqrt{\log(n)}}\log\left(e+ n\frac{\|f\|_{L^2(M)}}{\|f\|_{L^1{M}}}\right)^{-\frac{1}{2}}\cdot \frac{\|f\|_{L^1{M}}}{\|f\|_{L^\infty(M)}}.\] Explicit examples show that this lower bound is sharp up to the logarithmic factor in \(n\). The proof of this result employs optimal transport, and a new inequality giving a lower bound on the Wasserstein distance of absolutely continuous measures with continuous densities.