A spectral Bernstein theorem (Q628610)

The authors study the spectrum of the Laplace operator of a complete minimal properly immersed hypersurface \(M\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). (1) Under a volume growth condition on extrinsic balls and a condition on the unit normal at infinity, they prove that \(M\) has an essential spectrum consisting only of the half line \([0,+ \infty)\). This is the case when \(\lim_{\tilde{r} \to + \infty} k_i=0,\) where \(\tilde{r}\) is the extrinsic distance to a point \(M\) and \(k_i\) are the principal curvatures. (2) If the principal curvatures \(k_i\) satisfy the decay conditions \(\|k_i\| \leq \frac{1}{\tilde{r}}\) and a strict inequality is achieved at some point \(y \in M\), then there are no eigenvalues. They apply these results to minimal graphic and multigraphic hypersurfaces.