Isospectral pairs of metrics on balls, spheres, and other manifolds with different local geometries (Q5953607)

The study of audible properties was initiated by \textit{J. Milnor} [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 51, 542 (1964; Zbl 0124.31202)] who constructed a pair of 16 dimensional isospectral but not isometric flat tori. Later on a lot of work was done in that direction and the most important results were obtained by Vignéras (1980), Ikeda (1980), Gordon and Wilson (1984, 1986), Sunada (1985), Buser (1986), Brooks and Tse (1987), DeTurck and Gordon and Gordon (1989), Gordon, Webb and Wolpert (1992) et al. The first examples of isospectral metrics with different local geometries were constructed by \textit{Z. I. Szabó} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 9, 185-214 (1999; Zbl 0964.53026)] and by \textit{C. Gordon} (closed manifolds) [J. Differ. Geom. 37, 639-649 (1993; Zbl 0792.53037)]. The constructions are based on the special 2-step nilpotent Lie algebras \(\{{\mathbf n}={\mathbf v}\oplus {\mathbf z},\langle,\rangle, {\mathbf J}_Z\}\), where \({\mathbf J}^2_Z=-|Z|^2 \text{id}\), for all \(Z\in {\mathbf z}\).~Continuous families of isospectral metrics such that family members have different local geometries were constructed by \textit{C. Gordon} and \textit{E. Wilson} [J. Differ. Geom. 47, 504-529 (1997; Zbl 0915.58104)], \textit{D. Schueth} [Ann. Math. (2) 149, 287-308 (1999; Zbl 0964.53027)], Gordon and Szabó [preprint] et al. The author's abstract follows now: ``The first isospectral pairs of metrics are constructed on the most simple simply connected domains, namely, on balls and spheres. The longstanding problem, concerning the existence of such pairs, has been solved by a new method called ``anticommutator technique''. Among the wide range of such pairs, the most striking examples are provided on the spheres \(S^{4k-1}\), where \(k\geq 3\). One of this metrics is homogeneous (since it is the metric on the geodesic sphere of a 2-point homogeneous space), while the other is locally inhomogeneous. These examples demonstrate the surprising fact that no information about the isometries is encoded in the spectrum of the Laplacian acting on the functions. In other words, the group of isometries, even the local homogeneity property, is lost to the nonaudible in the debate of audible versus nonaudible geometry.'' The proof is based on considering \(\sigma\)-deformations \({\mathbf n}_\sigma\) of some 2-step nilpotent Lie algebra \(\mathbf n\). The author provides a lot of new examples for nontrivial isospectral pairs on the ball \(\times\) torus-type domains. Isospectral metrics on balls and spheres can be constructed using special partial \(\sigma\)-deformations of an anticommutator in the endomorphism space. The corresponding nonisometry proofs are provided in the paper. Also, curvature and Laplacians acting on 1- and 2-forms are studied for these examples.