One can hear the corners of a drum (Q2788656)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded domain in the plane. The authors use the constant term in the heat trace asymptotics of the Dirichlet Laplacian to show that the property of having corners is spectrally determined by showingNEWLINENEWLINETheorem. Let \(\Omega\) be a simply connected planar domain with piecewise smooth Lipschitz boundary. If \(\Omega\) has at least one corner, then \(\Omega\) is not isospectral to any bounded planar domain with smooth boundary that has no corners.NEWLINENEWLINEThe computation of the constant term (\(a_0\)) generalizes results of \textit{M. van den Berg} and \textit{S. Srisatkunarajah} [Probab. Theory Relat. Fields 86, No. 1, 41--52 (1990; Zbl 0682.60067)] from the polygonal setting to the Lipschitz case; unlike computations of \textit{M. Kac} [Am. Math. Mon. 73, 1--23 (1966; Zbl 0139.05603)], convexity is not required.