Courant-sharp Robin eigenvalues for the square and other planar domains (Q2335815)

Courant's nodal domain theorem asserts that any eigenfunction associated with the \(k\)th eigenvalue of the Laplacian \(\lambda_k\) with homogeneous boundary conditions can have at most \(k\) nodal domains, i.e., its zero set can divide the domain into at most \(k\) connected components. It has been known since the now classical work of Pleijel in the 1950s that, for any given domain, there can be at most finitely many eigenvalues \(\lambda_k\) whose eigenfunctions admit exactly \(k\) nodal domains, the so-called Courant-sharp eigenvalues. These have gained interest in recent years, and have been intensively studied in the case of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions, in large part owing to their links to spectral minimal partitions of domains (see Section 10.2 of [\textit{A. Henrot} (ed.), Shape optimization and spectral theory. Berlin: De Gruyter (2017; Zbl 1369.49004)]). Here the authors study the case of Robin boundary conditions and the square, that is, they consider the eigenvalues \(\lambda_{k,h} (S)\), \(k \geq 1\), and associated eigenfunctions \(u_k \in H^1 (S)\) of the Laplacian subject to the boundary conditions \[ \frac{\partial}{\partial \nu} u_k + hu_k = 0 \] on \(\partial S\), where \(S \subset \mathbb{R}^2\) is the square with side length \(\pi\), \(\nu\) its outer unit normal, and \(h \geq 0\) is the Robin parameter. The main result is a quantitative form of the statement that for sufficiently large \(k\) no eigenvalue is Courant-sharp; concretely, one may take \(k=520\) (compare [\textit{B. Helffer} and \textit{M. P. Sundqvist}, Mosc. Math. J. 15, No. 3, 455--495 (2015; Zbl 1342.35198)] for the Neumann case, corresponding to \(k=0\)). The authors also treat the case of large parameter \(h \to +\infty\) and show that for all sufficiently large \(h\) the Courant-sharp eigenvalues are the same as in the Dirichlet case, formally corresponding to \(h = +\infty\). The case of small parameter \(h \approx 0\) is treated in a separate work by the same authors [Ann. Math. Qué. 44, No. 1, 91--123 (2020; Zbl 1434.35025)]. In the course of the paper, the authors also prove perturbation results on the stability of the number of nodal domains of Robin eigenfunctions on general planar domains.