Spectral and geometric bounds on 2-orbifold diffeomorphism type (Q846373)

The authors study the spectral geometry of the scalar Laplace operator on Riemannian orbifolds of dimension \(2\) in the spirit of the famous Kac paper ``Can one hear the shape of a drum''. They show: Main Theorem 1. For a fixed real number \(k\), let \(S(2,k)\) denote the set of isospectral Riemannian \(2\)-orbifolds with sectional curvature uniformly bounded below by \(k\). The collection \(S(2,k)\) contains orbifolds of only finitely many orbifold diffeomorphism types. Main Theorem 2. For \(D>0\), \(\nu>0\), and \(k\) fixed real numbers, let \(O_{k,\nu}^D\) denote the set of Riemannian \(2\)-orbifolds with sectional curvature uniformly bounded below by \(k\), diameter bounded above by \(D\), and volume bounded below by \(\nu\). The collection \(O_{k,\nu}^D\) contains only finitely many orbifold diffeomorphism types.