Pólya's conjecture for Euclidean balls (Q6072321)

Consider a domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^d\) with Lipschitz boundary, and denote by \((\lambda_n)\) and \((\mu_n)\) the increasing sequences of eigenvalues of the Laplacian \(-\Delta\) on \(\Omega\), with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions, respectively. It is a well known fact that the counting function for the Dirichlet eigenvalues, \(\mathscr N^{\mathrm{D}}(\lambda)=\#\{n\colon\lambda_n\leq \lambda\}\), is less than that of the Neumann eigenvalues, \(\mathscr N^{\mathrm{N}}(\lambda)=\#\{n\colon\mu_n\leq \lambda\}\), and that the Weyl's law \[ \mathscr N(\lambda)\underset{\lambda\to+\infty}{\sim} C_d|\Omega|\lambda^d \] holds for both the Dirichlet and Neumann counting functions. In [Patterns of plausible inference. Vol. II of mathematics and plausible reasoning. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1954; Zbl 0056.24102)], \textit{G. Pólya}'s conjectured that the two inequalities \[ \mathscr N^{\mathrm{D}}(\lambda)\leq C_d|\Omega|\lambda^d\quad\mbox{and}\quad \mathscr N^{\mathrm{N}}(\lambda)\geq C_d|\Omega|\lambda^d \] hold for all \(\lambda>0\). The first inequality can be called the Dirichlet Pólya conjecture, while the second one the Neumann Pólya conjecture. The authors of the paper under review nicely prove the Dirichlet Pólya conjecture when \(\Omega\) is a Euclidean ball, in any dimension, and in dimension 2, they prove the Neumann Pólya conjecture, thereby settling the Pólya conjecture for the disc. It is remarkable that a rigorous computer assisted proof is used to establish the Neumann Pólya conjecture when \(\lambda\in[3,14]\). Furthermore, the authors prove the Pólya conjecture for a circular sector, after observing that it tiles the disk. The proofs rely on deep links between the spectral problems in the disk and certain lattice counting problems.