Second eigenvalue of the Yamabe operator and applications (Q2510355)

The main goal of this paper is to study some properties of the eigenvalues of the Yamabe operator \(L_gu= c_n\Delta_g u+ S_g u\) and geometrical and topological properties of compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension \(n\geq 3\). Here \(c_n= 4(n-1)/(n-2)\), \(S_g\) is the scalar curvature and \(\Delta_g\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator. In particular, the interaction between the second eigenvalue and the existence of nodal solutions of the nonlinear equation \(L_g u= \varepsilon|u|^{n-2}u\), with \(\varepsilon= 1,0,-1\), is treated in detail.