No label defined (Q4237288)

Most bounds on eigenvalues of the Dirac operator only use local informations, e.g., curvature, Kähler structure and quaternionic Kähler structure. The main interest of this Ph.D. thesis is to find a lower bound for the smallest eigenvalue of the square of the Dirac operator, using global informations such as the spin structure. The first part of the thesis derives such a bound for 2-dimensional tori carrying a non-trivial spin structure and a metric with total curvature \(\int|K|< 4\pi\). The bound depends on the \(L^p\)-norm \((p>1)\) of the Gaussian curvature, the area, the systole and the spin-systole. Here the systole is defined to be the infimum over the lengths of non-contractible closed curves, and the spin-systole is the infimum over the lengths of closed curves along which the spin structure does not vanish. One major step in the proof of the estimate is to deduce estimates for the solutions of the Kazdan-Warner equation relating the original metric on the torus with a flat metric that is conformally equivalent to the original metric. The method also yields upper and lower bounds on all eigenvalues of the Laplace operator and of the square of the Dirac operator. The lower bound on the first Dirac eigenvalue is applied to embeddings of the 2-torus into the 3-dimensional sphere. The author deduces lower estimates for the Willmore functional. These estimates prove a special case of the Willmore conjecture. A variation of the argument proves that the diameter of a 2-dimensional torus is bounded from above by an explicit function depending on the total curvature, the area and the systole, provided that the total curvature is less than \(4\pi\). The second part of the thesis treats several other phenomena related to non-trivial spin structures. A lower bound for the first eigenvalue of the square of the Dirac operator is given if the underlying manifold is the total space of an \(S^1\)-fiber bundle. The behavior of the spectrum under collapse of these fibers is studied provided there is an isometric action along the fibers. The final chapter is a translation of [\textit{B. Ammann} and \textit{C. Bär}, Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 16, No. 3, 221-253 (1998; Zbl 0911.58037), Section 5] into German. In particular, families of compact Riemannian manifolds are constructed that are isospectral for one spin structure and non-isospectral for another spin structure.