Logarithmic lower bound on the number of nodal domains (Q516586)

Let \((M,g)\) be a compact Riemannian manifold with Laplacian \(\Delta\). The nodal set of an eigenfunction \(u_\lambda\), \(\Delta u_\lambda= -\lambda u_\lambda\) is denoted by \(Z_{u_\lambda}= \{x: u_\lambda(x)=0\}\). Let \(N(u_\lambda)\) denote the number of nodal domains of \(u_\lambda\). The author proves that the number of nodal domains of eigenfunctions grows at least logarithmically with the eigenvalue on certain negatively curved surfaces. More precisely, let \((M, J,\sigma)\) be a compact real Riemann surface of genus \(\mathfrak{g}\geq 2\) possessing an anti-holomorphic involution \(\sigma\) whose fixed point set is not empty. Let \(\mathcal{M}_{M,J,\sigma}\) be the space of \(\sigma\)-invariant negatively curved Riemannian metrics on \(M\). The main result asserts that for any \(g\in\mathcal{M}_{M,J,\sigma}\) and any orthonormal \(\Delta\)-eigenbasis \(\{\varphi_j\}\) of \(L^2_{even}(M)\) (resp. \(\{\psi_j\}\) of \(L^2_{odd}(M)\) one can find a density \(1\) subset \(A\) of \(\mathbb{N}\) and the constant \(C_g>0\) such that for all \(j\in A\) \[ N(\varphi_j)\geq C_g (\log \lambda_j)^K \text{ for all } K< 1/6, \] resp. \[ N(\psi_j)\geq C_g (\log \lambda_j)^K \text{ for all } K< 1/6. \]