Gradient estimate for eigenforms of Hodge Laplacian (Q2391625)

Let \(\Delta\) be the Hodge Laplacian acting on smooth forms on a compact Riemannian manifold whose sectional curvature is bounded by \(K.\) The eigenvalues of \(\Delta\) are \(0\leq\lambda_1\leq \lambda_2\leq \ldots \) with a corresponding orthonormal basis of eigenforms \(\phi_1,\phi_2,\ldots.\) Then the main result of the paper is the following: There is a constant \(c=c(n,V,d,K)\) depending on the dimension \(n,\) volume \(V\), diameter \(d\) and the curvature bound \(K\) such that the following holds: For \(b_i\in\mathbb{R}\) with \(\sum_{i=1}^k b_i^2\leq 1\) the form \(\omega=\sum_{i=1}^kb_i\phi_i\) satisfies \[ \left|\nabla \omega\right|^2+\left(\lambda_k+1\right)\left|\omega\right|^2\leq c\left(\lambda_k+1\right)^{n/2+1}. \] The exponent \(n/2+1\) is sharp. As a consequence, one obtains an estimate for the Hessian of eigenfunctions.