Trace formulae for the eigenvalues of the Laplacian (Q801218)

Let \(\lambda_ m\) denote the eigenvalues for the Laplacian in a bounded domain \(\Omega \subset R^ n\) with any of the usual boundary conditions on \(\partial \Omega\). The trace function is defined for \(t>0\) by \(\theta (t)=\sum^{\infty}_{1}\exp (-\lambda_ mt).\) The asymptotic behaviour of \(\theta\) (t) as \(t\to 0\) is known to be related to the geometry of \(\Omega\) and, in the case \(n=2\), Kac conjectured that the number h of holes in \(\Omega\) appears in the formula \(\theta (t)=| \Omega | (4\pi t)-(1/4)| \partial \Omega | /(4\pi t)^{\frac{1}{2}}+(1/6)(1-h)+o(1).\) The paper establishes this conjecture in the case where \(\Omega\) is a circular annulus \((h=1)\) and either the Dirichlet or Neumann conditions are imposed on each part of \(\partial \Omega\). Also considered are cuboid and cylindrical domains in \(R^ 3\).