Isospectral deformations of metrics on spheres (Q5944960)

The relationships between the geometry of Riemannian manifolds and their spectra have been the subject of extensive studies. For example, it is well known that geometric information as the dimension, the volume and the (total) scalar curvature of a Riemannian manifold are determined by its spectrum. And some Riemannian manifolds are even uniquely determined by their spectra. However there are many examples showing that the spectrum of a Riemannian manifold does not always determine its geometry. This is related to the spectral rigidity problem. If some Riemannian manifolds, like negatively curved metrics on closed manifolds, are known to be infinitesimally spectrally rigid, in contrast the author of the article under review proves the existence of isospectral deformations of positively curved metrics. Actually the main result of the paper under review is the following: Theorem: i) In every dimension \(n\geq 8\), there exist continuous isospectral deformations of Riemannian metrics on the sphere \(S^{n}\). The metrics can be chosen to be positively curved; in fact they can be taken to be arbitrarily close to the round metric. ii) In every dimension \(n\geq 9\), there exist continuous isospectral deformations of Riemannian metrics on the ball in \(R^{n}\). The metrics can be chosen arbitrarily close to the flat metric. The proof uses a method based on Riemannian submersions, introduced by the author of the article under review in J. Differ. Geom. 37, No. 3, 639-649 (1993; Zbl 0792.53037) and Contemp. Math. 173, 121-131 (1994; Zbl 0811.58063).