Isospectral metrics on weighted projective spaces (Q713043)

It is an open question whether a singular orbifold can be isospectral to a manifold. There are known examples of isospectral pairs of singular orbifolds, but all previously known examples were ``good'' orbifolds, i.e., each orbifold in the isospectral pair can be written as the quotient of a Riemannian manifold \(M\) by a discrete subgroup \(\Gamma\) of the isometry group of \(M\). This category of examples cannot lead to an isospectral pair consisting of a manifold and a singular orbifold, and therefore, if such a pair exists, then it will require a more general construction. Motivated by this more general problem, the author constructs examples of isospectral families of ``bad'' singular orbifolds which are pairwise non-isometric. The underlying orbifolds are all of the form \(\mathcal{O}(p,q)\) (with \(p,q\) relatively prime), where \(\mathcal{O}(p,q) = S^{2n+1}/S^1\) for some \(n \geq 4\), with the \(S^1\)-action on \(S^{2n+1}\) given by \(\sigma(u,v) = (\sigma^p u, \sigma^q v)\) for \(\sigma \in S^1 \subset \mathbb{C}\), \(u \in \mathbb{C}^{n-1}\), \(v \in \mathbb{C}\). For each triple \((n,p,q)\), a family of non-isometric, isospectral metrics is constructed on the singular orbifold \(\mathcal{O}(p,q)\). The construction uses a generalization of the torus method previously used by \textit{D. Schueth} to construct examples of isospectral metrics on spheres [J. Differ. Geom. 58, No. 1, 87--111 (2001; Zbl 1038.58042)].